Probation Practice, Effectiveness and the Non-Treatment Paradigm

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper reports interim and largely positive results from the continuing evaluation of 'Straight Thinking on Probation', a substantial intensive probation programme in Mid-Glamorgan based on the work of Robert Ross el al. (1988) in Canada. The potential effectiveness of this type of programme is then discussed in relation to the influential model of the probation service's role advanced by Bottoms and McWilliams in their 1979 'non-treatment paradigm'. Are such programmes 'treatment', based on a model of offender pathology and therefore in conflict with the paradigm, or are they 'help', based on a model of empowerment? An attempt to answer this question also requires consideration of how far the 'non-treatment paradigm' was itself a response to perceived ineffectiveness requiring revision in the light of new evidence. It is argued that such revision need not threaten the underlying moral philosophy of the paradigm.