Ever Decreasing Circles: Practitioners and Probation Bureaucracy

Abstract

It seems uncontentious to suggest that probation officers should organise, pool their expertise, develop strategies and policies, and take note of research and experience. A real opportunity to so do so came with the expansion of the Service in the 1970's yet the authors maintain that the main outcome of this growth has failed to do this. Instead, what has emerged from organisation is a management that has become estranged from the practice of Probation work. They argue that despite the early belief that an expanding Service bureaucracy would continue to uphold individual officer discretion and keep central decision- making to a minimum, the reverse has happened. They believe that there is now little consensus between the practitioners and the bureaucracy on the role of the Probation Service.