Reviews : Community Service: Making Sense of the Sentence Oxfordshire Probation Service, VHS video, 24 minutes
| Date | 01 June 1989 |
| Author | Graham Nicholls |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058903600207 |
| Published date | 01 June 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
71
substituted
for
cocaine?
If
you
put
some
arnphetamine
tablets
into
your
jeans
pocket,
and
your
mother
washes
the
jeans
and
you
assume
the
tablets
to
have
been
washed
away
(when
your
mother
has
carefully
put
them
into
your
chest
of
drawers)
can
you
be
said
to
possess
them?
I
found
myself
riveted
by
the
intricate
and
convoluted
pro-
cesses
of
the
legal
mind.
Does
a
person
know
they
possess
a
substance
if
they
would
require
a
laboratory
full
of
equipment
to
find
it
out
or
(even
bet-
ter)
if
they
have
forgotten
all
about
it?
It
may
sound
dull,
but
here’s
one
read-
er
who
found
it
anything
but.
If
I
had
known
that
the
law
could
be
so
inter-
esting
(and
so
well
set
out)
I
would
have
been
tempted
to
be
a
solicitor
and
not
a
probation
officer.
This
book
does
not
merely
lay out
the
law
on
the
subject
but
has
a
deal
of
practical
and
historical
information
on
the
subject
of
drug
abuse
that
I
was
not
aware
of.
As
someone
who
has
worked
closely
with
drug
addicts
I
would
have
found
this
book
invaluable.
The
pub-
lisher’s
blurb
states
’the
criminal
law
practitioner
has
long
awaited
a
com-
plete
and
thorough
analysis
of
drug
misuse.
Members
of
the
Criminal
Bar,
Solicitors
with
a
criminal
practice,
and
Police
and
Custom
and
Excise
person-
nel
will
all
derive
great
value
from
it’.
They
could
without
hesitation
include
‘Probation
Officer’
among
the
list.
There
is
only
one
slight
drawback
and
that
is
the
price.
I
remember
that
when
I
worked
for
Associated
Book
Publishers
the
mark-up
applied
to
school
textbooks
by
which
one
multi-
plied
the
printing
price
of
each
copy
to
obtain
the
selling
price
was
three
and
half
or
three
and
three
quarter
times.
In
the
same
firm
the
mark-up
applied
to
novels,
was
five
times,
and
to
Sweet
&
Maxwell’s
law
books
(it
was
part
of
the
same
firm)
was
eight
or
nine
times.
If
the
same
mark-up
was
applied
to
a
well-known
directory
of
the
Proba-
tion
Service,
it
would
cost
£15
a
copy.
In
the
end
the
question
is
whether
The
Law
on
the
Misuse
of
Drugs
is
worth
~~~
to a
practitioner?
On
the
whole
I
think
it
is.
Owen
Wells
Probation
Officer,
Doncaster
Community
Service:
Making
Sense
of
the
Sentence
Oxfordshire
Probation
Service,
VHS
video,
24
minutes
Community
Service
has
always
provid-
ed
the
marketable
face
of
the
Probation
Service
and
in
consequence,
over
the
years,
there
have
been
a
num-
ber
of
videos
extolling
the
virtues
of
the
scheme
in
X
or
Y
area.
This
very
cred-
itable
tape
was
made
by
three
residents
in
an
Oxford
probation
hostel,
with
the
assistance
of
Oxford
Independent
Video.
Although
apparently
working
with-
out
a
script,
the
makers
present
a
generally
coherent
and
challenging
view
of
the
Oxfordshire
scheme,
using
interviews
with
magistrates,
consumers
and
participants,
and
descriptions
of
a
range
of
placements.
It
covers
the
potential
value
of
community
service
for
courts,
offenders
and
the
communi-
ty,
and
deals
with
questions
of
risk
and
accountability.
Most
interestingly
it
makes
an
open
challenge
to
the
philos-
ophy
of
the
new
National
Guidelines
and
upholds
the
value
of
running
a
scheme
which
treats
all
concerned
as
responsible
adults
engaged
in
worth-
while
tasks.
The
notes
which
accompany
the
tape
suggest
that
it
can
be
used
to
stimulate
discussion
with
magistrates
and,
smarting
from
a
recent
encounter
with
magistrates
who
would
like
to
see
us
taking
over
street
clean-
ing,
I
can
see
its
value.
There
are a
few
disappointments:
as
with
other
tapes
of
this
kind,
there
is
an
emphasis
on
the
high
profile
individual
placements
which,
in
my
area
at
least,
provide
a
minority
of the
tasks
avail-
able.
By
concentrating
on
these
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