Probation, Pragmatism and Policy

Abstract: This paper considers the position of and justifications for the English probation system in the modern period in which penal policy has come to be dominated by a pragmatism which is both philosophical and practical in its penetration. It plots the effects on the service of the demise of confidence in the diagnostic ideal and the subsequent dominance of policy considerations, and it identifies three schools of thought in the probation service which have emerged in recent times.