The impact of supervision on the pains of community penalties in England and Wales: An exploratory study

Abstract

This article explores the pains experienced by nine offenders subjected to (supervised) community and suspended sentence orders in an English Probation Trust between July 2013 and January 2014, arguing their importance for both deontological and consequentialist penal objectives. It identifies six major groups of pains and explores the extent to which their incidence and experienced intensity were affected by the supervisory relationship, which intensified or reduced some pains but left others materially unaffected. Despite the limitations of this exploratory study, implications can still be drawn for penal policy, both in England and Wales and across Europe.