A Report on Persistent Offenders
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057101700304 |
| Published date | 01 September 1971 |
| Date | 01 September 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
77
A
REPORT
ON
PERSISTENT
OFFENDERS
A
Group
of
Kent
Probation
Officers
THE
aim
of
the
group
was
to
examine
the
problems
presented
by
persistent
offenders,
having
in
mind
that
it
is
this
class
of
offender
which
is
taking
up
an
increasing
part
of
a
probation
officer’s
caseload
and
which
is
the
most
difficult
to
deal
with.
We
had
first
to
decide
what
we
mean
by
persistent
offenders;
we
never
produced
a
precise
definition
but
included
all
those
for
whom
present
penal
methods
appear
ineffective.
We
recognised
that
there
are
some
offenders
who
may
need
to
commit
a
limited
number
of
offences
as
part
of
their
learning
experience;
these
we
did
not
c.lassify
as
persistent
offenders.
We
next
attempted
to
classify
persistent
offenders
into
various
categories.
Professional
criminals
was
one
easily
identifiable
group:
neurotic
offenders
constituted
another,
and
a
further
small
group
were
those
bordering
on
insanity,
such
as
incipient
schizophrenics.
However,
the
group
to
which
we
returned
again
and
again
was
that
large
percentage
of
the
prison
population
labelled
as
amoral,
psychopathic
or
just
inadequate,
and
who
tend
to
be
lumped
together
as
suffering
from
a
&dquo;per-
sonality
disorder&dquo;.
Offenders
in this
group
become
the
problem
children
of
the
probation
officer’s
caseload.
They
fail
on
probation,
get
sent
to
institutions,
fail
on
after-care
and
then
start
a
series
of
prison
sentences
which,
even
at
an
early
age,
results
in
their
getting
written
off
as
hopeless.
Usually
they
are
the
nuisances
of
society
rather
than
the
menaces
and
the
sense
of
failure
and
despair
which
they
feel
about
themselves
gets
transferred
to
probation
officers.
As
a
result,
a
kind
of
vicious
circle
sets
in,
-in
which
having
been
written
off,
little
is
done
for
such
offenders
either
during
or
after
sentence,
which
inevitably
confirms
them
in
their
criminality.
We
recognised
that
in
this
group
of
offenders
said
to
be
suffering
from
behaviour
disorders,
are
sub-groups
with
characteristics
of
their
own.
Thus,
there
are
those
whose
offences
are
associated
with
drinking
although
not
necessarily
recognised
alcoholics;
those
who
are
capable
of
good
conduct
over
a
short
period
only
to
revert
under
pressure;
those
whose
inadequacy
seems
to
permeate
into
every
:area
of
their
life;
and
those
whose
offences
are
associated
with
violence.
Accepting
that
they
are
different
sub-groups,
we
feel
that
they
have
certain
characteristics
in
common,
such
as
an
inability
to
learn
from
experience,
a
failure
in
personal
relationships
and
an
incapacity
to
withstand
frustration.
We
also
wondered
if
in
most
of
them
was
a
destructiveness
in
their
personality
which made
them
compulsively
seek
to
fail.
These
characteristics
are,
of
course,
those
usually
associated
with
psychopaths,
and
although
we
feel
that
to
label
them
all
psychopathic
was
going
too
far,
they
are
all
suffering
from
some
psychopathic
disorder.
We
then
looked
briefly
at
the
present
methods
of
dealing
with
such
offenders.
Probation
in
terms
of
support
and
casework
seems
to
be
made
ineffective
because
of
the
inability
of
this
type
of
person
to
make
meaningful
relationships.
There
were
some
divergences
of
opinion
as
to
the
extent
this
reflected
d2flicu~l~ties
in
personality
or
the
limitations
in
techniques
of
probation
officers,
but
all
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