1. DAY CENTRE RECONVICTION RATES
- Author
-
Claire Nee and George Mair
- Subjects
Service (business) ,Custodial sentence ,Social Psychology ,Green paper ,Criminology ,Pathology and Forensic Medicine ,White paper ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Forensic engineering ,Mainstream ,Justice (ethics) ,Group work ,Psychology ,Law ,Criminal justice - Abstract
Since their introduction in the Criminal Justice Act 1982, probation day centres have assumed an important role in the work of the probation service and as a sentencing option. This paper discusses the success of day centres in terms of their reconviction rates, while pointing to the limitations of relying solely on this criterion as a measure of success. It is concluded that, taking account of the high-risk offenders who tend to be the recipients of a day centre order ( 17-25years old, with several previous convictions and experience of custody), the reconviction rates of centres are not unacceptable, although wide variation among centres merits further study. Probation day centres are the most recent major development in mainstream probation work—and may well be the most significant—since the introduction of the community service order in the mid-1970s.1 Day centres offer probation officers a new method of working with offenders; in the centres, group work replaces individual counselling. Since the Criminal Justice Act 1982 the number of day centres in existence has multiplied rapidly (it is difficult to state with any degree of certainty how many centres exist, but it is likely that there are between 80 and 100 in operation) and they are now a major probation resource. Their significance is set to increase further as a result of the emphasis given to their role in governmental probation service policy; both the Green Paper Punishment, Custody and the Community (Home Office 1988), and the subsequent White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public (Home Office 1990a) discuss the importance of day centres. Following the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act (which gives effect to some of the proposals set out in the White Paper), probation services will increasingly be called upon to manage individual packages of supervision for more serious offenders, and day centres will provide an important contribution to such packages. Indeed, it is clear already that day centres are playing a significant role in the development of many intensive probation programmes (twenty such pro grammes have been set up). Day centres vary widely from place to place in terms of the number and types of staff, the kinds of offenders accepted, the programme and courses on offer, the length of order, and the opening times of centres (Mair 1988). Offenders are required to attend a day centre in addition to being subject to a probation order, and the majority of centres aim to offer a direct alternative to a custodial sentence. A typical day centre would have around ten staff (consisting of two probation officers, two probation ancillary workers, three volunteer workers, two sessional supervisors, and one clerical/secretarial worker), although these would not all be full-time. About twenty to twenty-five
- Published
- 1992