The What Works Debate: Keeping a Human Perspective

Abstract

This article, arising from the author’s long experience of work in the probation service, was inspired by Peter Raynor’s (2003) article ‘ Evidence-based practice and its critics’. It argues that the antipathy many probation staff have towards the What Works agenda is not necessarily a rejection of cognitive behavioural methods in themselves. Rather, in the politically driven rush to produce ‘results’, it suggests that there has been a failure to take proper account of the importance of the individual and his or her complex needs. This is the probation officer’s traditional strength and, it is argued, is something that Raynor’s article fails to fully appreciate.