Unique Perspective
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059404100127 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Author | Dean Clarke |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
63
LETTE
RS
Unique
Perspective
As
a
court-based
probation
officer
whose
work
involves
monitoring
large
numbers
of
Pre-Sentence
Reports,
I
strongly
endorse
the
comments
and
sentiments
expressed
by
your
Northumbrian
correspondents
’Reporting
by
Numbers’
(PJ
December
1993).
Many
in
the
Probation
Service
seem
too
readily
to
have
given
up
the
language
of
social
work
in
favour
of
that
of
lawyers.
This
involves
a
misinterpretation
of
our
role
and
is
not
required
of
us
by
any
guidance
we
have
received
since the
1991
Criminal
Justice
Act.
True,
we
have
to
gauge
seriousness
accurately,
exclude
irrelevant
information
and
generally
be
offence
focused,
but
this
was
m
any
case
a
matter
of
good
practice
in
the
latter
days
of
social
enquiry
reports.
Too
many
reports
these
days
are
brief
and
descriptive
with
little
analysis
of
offenders,
their
circumstances,
and
their
past
and
present
offending.
There
is
much
vacuous
talk
of
enforcing
reporting
requirements
and
’challenging
offending
behaviour’,
of
aggravating
and
mitigating
factors
(in
the
legalistic
sense),
and
precise
assessments
of
the
amount
of
pi:nishment
required
(’100
to
149’
hours
Community
Service!!).
There
is
much
collusion
with
the
defence
perspective
(’he
realises
he
has
been
foolish
and
regrets
his
actions’).
There
is
not
so
much
on
how
the
offender
really
thinks
and
feels
and
why
this
is
so.
Offending
is
a
complex
phenomenon
and,
for
each
individual,
requires
various
levels
of
explanation
(structural,
cultural,
sub-cultural,
familial,
psychological,
situational,
etc.)
which
all
mter-relate.
Part
of
our
job
is
surely
to
do
that
analysis,
and
in
so
doing
to
define
what
we
regard
as
’relevant
information’.
We
are
all
trained
in
sociology,
criminology,
psychology,
child
development,
mental
health,
social
work
methods,
penology,
etc.
We
are
skilled
and
experienced
in
dealing
with
all
sorts
of
people
and
situations.
Why
is
it
that
so
little
of
this
permeates
into
our
reports?
We
have
vacated
our
own
field.
No-one
has
asked
us
to
do
this,
yet
in
so
doing
we
leave
ourselves
vulnerable
to
those
that
think
that
the
job
can
be
done
just
as
well
by
redundant
army
sergeants.
Pre-sentence
reports
as
’objective’
professional
documents,
written
creatively
by
skilled
practitioners
(a
paragraph
headed
’Assessment’
would
not
come
amiss!)
would
do
much
to
raise
our
credibility
in
courts
and
encourage
sentencers
to
make
more
subtle
judgements
about
seriousness
and
desert.
There
is
a
radical
edge
to
this.
Many
pre-sentence
reports,
by
default,
present
offenders
as
foolish
individuals
requiring
finely
graded
punishment,
rather
than
complex
social
beings
caught
up
in
situations
not
wholly
of
their
own
making.
Is
it
any
wonder
that
probation
orders
are
in
decline?
We
need
to
reassert
our
own
unique
perspective
confidently,
not
throw
the
baby
out
with
the
bath
water.
Dean
Clarke
Court
Liaison
Officer,
Doncaster
Hostel
Inspection
The
Briefing
Note
on
the
Thermatic
Inspection
of
Probation
Hostels
(PJ
December
’93)
importantly
reiterates
HM
Inspectorate’s
finding
that
’so-called
mixed
hostels
are
predominantly
male
hostels
with
one
or
two
women
residents.
The
solitary
woman
resident
is
not
unusual.
This
practice
is
inadvisable’.
Recent
unpubhshed
research
shows
that
over
50 %
of
women
offenders
have
been
To continue reading
Request your trial