Student Placements in Prison Welfare
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| Author | Allan G. Brown |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057502200105 |
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
instances, probation officers on this side of the Atlantic have operated
the reintegration principle-some have provided services for their whole
caseload from recruited volunteers, allowing the probation officer to
adopt the role of a professional adviser maintaining standards. Recent
work in the development of community service orders and New Careers
indicate that there is a will for reintegration-team management could
provide the means.
Although such a major structural re-organisation and development of
new skills might seem to present daunting problems, it is worth consider-
ing the possible new strength a closer involvement with community life
.
could give the Service. Without its feet on the ground the Probation
.
j Service could find itself moving further into a punitive and controlling
role that could increasingly isolate its staff and clients.
Student Placements
in Prison Welfare
ALLAN G. BROWN
Bristol University
IN RECENT years the Probation and After-Care Service has become much
more involved with the prison system, as the result both of increased
responsibilities for after-care, through-care and parole, and the staffing
of Prison Welfare Departments. The proportion of probation officers,
working in prisons must now be approaching one in ten, and a newly
qualified officers probably has at least a 50: 50 chance of working in a
prison at some stage of his career. The profession of social work is thus
now substantially involved in the prison situation. For these and other
reasons, it seems important to offer as many probation and other social
work students as possible the opportunity of working in the prison
welfare setting as some part of their practical work experience during
their training course. This type of placement is to be distinguished from
the two-week observational residential placements when the student is
attached to the Prison Department and to’the institution as a whole.
During the period August-October 1973, 13 students from the Bristol
University two-year course did block placements in the welfare Depart-
ments of eleven different prisons. All these students, twelve of whom
were probation trainees, had asked for this type of placement from a
range of alternatives for their first major placement. The prisons used
for the placement covered a wide range of types including local,
maximum security, open and training. This, and the variable impact of
the prison ofhcer’s overtime ban, affected the nature of each individual
student’s experience. After the placement was over, supervisors, students
and tutors evaluated the...
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