80% of offenders have positive attitude to probation system
The offenders particularly value the practical assistance given by probation officers in accessing employment, housing, or addiction services and their help in dealing with personal problems.
However, many experience personal difficulties after their supervision has ended and do not know how to access social supports subsequently.
Research by Deirdre Healy, a lecturer in criminology in UCD, found 27% of offenders under probation supervision were reimprisoned within four years.
She said this “compared favourably” with a re-imprisonment rate of 49% among prisoners.
Her research, Experiencing Offender Supervision in Ireland, said Ireland’s rate of imprisonment stands at 100 per 100,000 people. This suggested that “levels of punitiveness” were relatively high” in Ireland.
She said while there had been a gradual rise in the number of supervision orders by the courts between 1980 and 2011, there had been a “sharp and substantial growth” in committals to prison, a trend particularly pronounced since 2006.
Dr Healy said her research, published on Offender Supervision in Europe, found that more than 80% of probationers expressed positive attitudes towards probation supervision.
Probation officers, in turn, rated offenders highly on attitudes, attendance, and engagement.
She said a follow-up study conducted several years after the initial interviews found offenders “largely retained” their positive attitudes to probation supervision.
“In particular, they valued the practical assistance they had received from their probation officers, such as help with employment, addiction and housing,” she said. “They also positively recalled opportunities to exercise autonomy, participate in strong therapeutic relationships, and engage in meaningful rehabilitative activities during the supervision.
“However, many of the probationers began to experience personal difficulties after the supervision order ended but did not know how to access formal assistance outside the criminal justice system. This highlights the need to develop a more effective and continuous system of formal social support that extends beyond the criminal justice system.”
Dr Healy said recent legislation, including a law aimed at diverting fine defaulters from prison and a law obliging judges to consider community service in cases where prison is an option, indicated a willingness among politicians to support wider use of community sanctions. “The prospects for community sanctions have become more promising and there appears to be a belated recognition among politicians that the high costs of imprisonment are unsustainable,” she said.
