A History of the Use of Groups in Probation Work: Part One – From ‘Clubbing the Unclubbables’ to Therapeutic Intervention

Abstract

In recent times, groupwork with people supervised by probation staff has become a central part of the government driven effective practice strategy: it has not always been so. For most of the history of the probation service, groupwork, with some notable exceptions, has been a peripheral activity sustained mainly by the energy and commitment of enthusiastic practitioners. Moreover, it has been a relatively neglected part of the story of probation. This, then, is the first of two articles that set out to tell that story. This first part describes the development of groupwork from the late mission period (characterised by moral exhortation) to the era of professionalisation (characterised by casework treatment). In so doing, it seeks to emphasise the importance of groupwork's contribution to the epistemological history of the supervision of offenders in the community.