Probation

The Probation Service is a national service split into regions like police forces. The Probation Service is most known for supervising and supporting offenders in the community but they also do other important work within prisons and courts.

What do The Probation Service do?

The Probation Service have 4 main roles:

To support offenders in prison
To supervise and support offenders in the community having been given a community order by the courts
To supervise and support offenders in the community when they have been released from prison
To write reports for courts to help them in making a decision about sentencing

In Prison

The Probation Service support offenders in prison to meet certain targets during their sentence. Each prisoner who has a sentence of 12 months or more will have a sentence plan with targets to meet mostly in prison relation to their offence. These targets could include:

Engaging with offender behaviour programmes. These programmes encourage offenders to address why they committed the offence and to prevent them from re-offending in the future.
Doing certain activities e.g. attending education to improve their Maths and English and undertaking certain work within prison to hopefully improve their circumstances on release.
Getting help for mental health needs and/or substance misuse (problems with drugs and/or alcohol).

The probation staff will also help prisoners plan for their release e.g. helping them find somewhere to live.

Probation officers within prison are usually known as Offender Supervisors.

In the Community

The Probation Service supervise and support offenders in the community when:

the court has issued a community order with specific requirements attached to it, such as doing unpaid work, engaging with specific activities e.g. education or training, not going to certain areas, adhering to a curfew and mental health treatment.
a prisoner has been given a prison sentence of 12 months or more and have been released from prison to serve the remainder of their sentence in the community, under specific licence conditions such as mentioned above.

Probation officers in the community are usually known as Offender Managers.

In Court

If a defendant (the person accused of an offence) has been found guilty by the court, The Probation Service may be asked to help the court make a decision on what sentence to give an individual by writing a Hands & Papers pre-sentence report. This report involves a member of probation staff speaking with the defendant to consider the nature and seriousness of the offence and the impact on the victim, and the level of risk the person may pose. Information could include: