Probation Service Users: to empower or to exclude

Abstract

The Probation Service has shifted from its roots in social work and the use of benevolent care and control activities towards a corrections focused agency, charged with the task of reducing re-offending and protecting the public. But does this changed focus give the Service any rationale for practice which excludes Probation Service users a term I use in place of the more usual 'offenders', 'clients' or 'cons' which are in themselves demeaning and exclusionary? Or can the Service renew its long held commitment to anti-oppression and empowerment? The Probation Service is implicated in the exclusion of service users, but it can reclaim principles of partnership, inclusion and passion.