Articles

It is with great pleasure and a deep sense of honour that I offer you the following thoughts to close this special edition of the British Journal of Community Justice.

Only Paul could pull it off! For some time I had been aware that Paul Senior had been planning to organise an extended ‘conversation’ in his favourite Lakeland hotel for colleagues and friends from his career in probation.

During our ‘Conversation with Paul Senior’ in Kendal in January 2016, we reflected on the role of the Probation Institute (PI) in the future of Probation, especially its role in training and research.

Alongside its strategy for privatising the probation service, the Ministry of Justice in the Conservative-led Coalition government (2010-2015) hatched a plan to upgrade from radio frequency electronic monitoring (EM) to a much larger scale, and solo use of GPS tracking.

This is a manifesto outlining a relationship between higher education and the new agencies of probation, community rehabilitation and public protection. It argues for constructive partnership.

This article argues that probation policy needs to take much greater account of the important role of emotion in probation and other criminal justice practice.

A former probation chief, writing in 2013, targeted the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government’s ‘Rehabilitation Revolution’ (Conservative Party, 2008) with withering scorn.