Probation Case-Work Basic Principles and Methods (Part I)
| Author | Peter W. Paskell |
| Date | 01 October 1953 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455055300602301 |
| Published date | 01 October 1953 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PROBATION
SERIAL
ACQUISITION~
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6617.230000
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..
Date: 24/11/2010
The
Journal
of
the
National
Association
of
Probation
Office.
JI
953
VOLUME 6 CONTENTS NUMBER 23
PROBATION CASE-
WOR
BASIC PRINCIPLES
AND
METHODS
PROBATION
CASE-WORK:
Peter
W.
Paske
II
THE
LAW,
PSYCHOLOGY
AND
THE
CRIMINAL
(Part
II):
E. R.
GUest
...
PRISON
AFTER-CARE:
THE
MAXWELL
REPORT:
Frank
Dawtry
...
LOOKING
WIDER:
Lois
Moores-Weedon
PROBATION
FORUM
Page
265
267
269
271
272
BOOK
REVIEWS:
Juvenile
Delinquency
Clarke'
Hall
and
Morrison
Supplement
English
Prison
and
Borstal
System
...
The
Probation
Hostel
in
England
Are
Findings
Keepings?
Patterns
of
Marriage
BRANCH
LINES
SECRETARY'S
NOTES:
DIARY
Page
273
273
273
273.
274
274
275
By
PETER
W.
PASKELL,
Principal Probation Officer, Nottingham Combined Probation Area
[Thi·
paper
was
given
to
the
United
Nations
seminar
in
London,
October, 1952,
and
is
published
here by
permission
of
U.N.
and
of
the
writer]
When, in 1907,
Parliament
first
made
legal provision
for offenders to be
placed
on
probation
under
personal
supervision,
it
did so in
the
knowledge
that
the
value of
such
treatment
had
already
been
demonstrated
by
experiment. As
has
so
often
happened,
progressive
thinkers
had
forestalled legislation
and
had
improvised
means
of applying to offenders
the
newly developing
casework
methods;
although
such
treatment
had
no
foundation
on
the
statute
book. Long before
the
20th
century,
courts
had
made
use
of
their
power to
bind
people over to come up for
judgment
if
called
upon
to
do so,
and
the
idea
of
placing
these
offenders
under
some
form of supervision followed
naturally,
if
slowly, from
this
practice.
Whether
these
two principles were first
combined in America or
England
may
be open to
doubt
but
certainly
toward
the
end
of
the
19th
century
courts
often
referred
offenders to available
voluntary
workers
on
this
basis.
In
England
the
first police
court
missionaries, as
they
were
then
called, were
appointed
In 1887 by
the
Church
of
England
Temperance
Society
with
the
primary
object
of
"attempting
to
arrest
the
downward careers of
men
who
made
their
first
appearance
in
the
police
courts
through
drink"
but
it was soon found'
that
they
were
able to
help
other
people
and
their
use by
the
courts
was
facilitated
by
the
Summary
Jurisdiction
Act of 1879,
the
First
Offenders Act, 1887,
and
the
Youthful
Offenders
Act of 1901.
.Tustices
'asked
these
missionaries to advise
and
help
men
and
women who
had
been
dealt
with
under
these
Ar.ts
and
so
the
procedure of
binding
over was linked
more
and
more
witn
acondition
that
the
man
or
woman
should accept voluntarily
the
supervision of
another
person.
These
early
workers were
not
officially officers
of
the
court
but
the
results
they
achieved
emphasised
that
then" as now,
any
successful casework is
based
fundamentally
on
co-operation
and
not
coercion.
It
was
not
surprising
to find
such
methods
of
dealing
with
delinquents
growing
at
that
time
for
they
were
part
of a
general
new
approach
to
the
social problems
then
existing. Preceding years
had
seen
vast
changes
in
our
social
structure
with
the
development of science,
industry
and
commerce.
interests
which
had
demanded
overriding
consideration
and
had
led to
mass
aggrega-
tion
of people
in
large cities,
under
conditions
which
were
not
only
appalling
physically
but
also
degrading
morally
and
spiritually.
It
is in
.the
realisation
by
the
Victorian
reformers
of
these
conditions
that
casework
may
be
said
to
have
been born.
They
were faced
not
only
with
the
task
of alleviating
material
distress
but
of
regenerating
the
elements
of
character
and
will-
power
which
alone could
bring
the
victims
back
to be
.self-respectlng members of
the
community.
Charity
disbursed
sporadically-sometimes
for questionable
motives-was
touching
merely
the
fringe of
the
problem,
and
it
was a
most
signlncant
'step
when
in 1869
the
Charity
Organisation
Society-"
a
general
family case-
work agency
"-was
founded,
with
apolicy of
organised
relief
based
on
careful
personal
enquiry
and
a
realisa-
tion
that
personal
contact
and
sympathy
may
be
decisive
factors
in
any
attempt
to help
the
individual
in distress.
It
was
appreciated
too,
that
every
attempt
must
be
made
to find
the
fundamental
causes of
the
trouble
rather
than
rest
content
with
superficial allevia-
tion.
The
problem of
these
first caseworkers was to get to
know
their
clients, to
make
real
contact
with
individual
people arid
their
surroundings;
and
so
the
early
foundations
were laid on
which
the
modern
casework
approach
has
been developed.
(Continued
overleats
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