Improving Understanding And Recall Of The Probation Service Contract
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059904600408 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
259
PRACTICE
NOTE
Improving
Understanding
And
Recall
Of
The
Probation
Service
Contract
Achieving
greater
compliance
with
community
sentences
and
licences
is
an
important
Probation
Service
priority.
Leigh
Morris
and
Jonathan
Mason
use
IQ
test
evidence
to
argue
that
supervision
contracts
may
be
too
difficult
for
a
significant
proportion
of
offenders
to
understand,
contributing
to
unnecessary
breach.
They
present
an
example
of
a
simplified
probation
contract,
which
they
urge
probation
services
to
consider.
here
is
considerable
evidence
to
show
that
the
IQ
of
people
in
the
Criminal
Justice
System
is
lower
than
that
of
the
general
population
(e.g.
Eysenck
and
Gudjonsson,
1989;
Hermstein
and
Murray,
1994;
West
and
Farrington,
1973).
Generally,
the
mean
IQ
gap
between
offenders
and
non-offenders
is
thought
to
be around
8-10
points.
Specific
investigations
into
the
IQ
levels
of
Probation
Service
users
are
essentially
absent,
although
a
small
preliminary
study
by
Mason
(1997)
has
shown
that
the
mean
IQ
scores
of
users
of
Kent
Probation
Service
is
eighty-seven.
This
compares
with
an
average
IQ
of
100
for
the
rest of
the
population
(We~hsler,
1981).
The
work
of
Clare
and
Gudjonsson
(1992)
and
Gudjonsson
(1991)
has
also
raised
serious
concerns
about
the
appropriateness
of
material
which
people
within
the
Criminal
Justice
System
are
required
to
understand.
An
initial
inspection
of
the
Kent
Probation
Service
contract
suggested
that
it
was
likely
to
be
too
difficult
for
many
of
the
service-users
to
comprehend.
This
prima
facie
impression
of
the
document
was
confirmed
with
a
Flesch
(1948)
reading
analysis,
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