Legal aspects of supervised probation

Abstract

The article focuses on the legal aspects of supervised probation. Domestic legislation has undergone fundamental changes in the area of regulation of legal relations related to probation following the adoption of the Law of Ukraine «On Probation» on 5 February 2015. Probation is defined as a system of supervisory and social and educational measures applied to convicted persons by a court decision and in accordance with the law, execution of certain types of non-custodial criminal sentences, and provision of information to the court on the defendant. One of the types of probation is supervisory probation, which is aimed at implementing supervisory and social and educational measures in relation to persons sentenced to deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities, community service, correctional labour, persons whose sentence of restriction of liberty or imprisonment for a certain period of time was commuted to community service or correctional labour, persons released from serving a sentence with probation, pregnant women and women with children under the age of The legal system of probation and the activities of probation bodies in Ukraine is provided for by the Constitution of Ukraine, the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine «On Probation», other laws and international treaties ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The purpose of supervised probation is to develop individual programmes for the convicted person, which would allow for the re-education of the person, adaptation to society, and prevention of new criminal offences. The main functions of supervised probation are vested in the probation body, which supervises convicted persons, develops and implements probation programmes, which are a necessary component of the tasks of supervised probation. Thus, a necessary component of the re-education of a convicted person is the implementation of the supervisory measures assigned to him/her.