Where we have come from

The origins of probation can be tracked back to as early as 1867, when Hertfordshire local printer and philanthropist Frederic Rainer gifted 5 shillings to the Church of England Temperance Society to rescue people who fell into crime through “drunkenness”.

With this money, the first Police Court Missionary, as they were known in the early days, George Nelson was appointed to Southwark and Lambeth Courts in London.

His role was to deal with individual drunkards with a view to their “restoration and reclamation” to assist and supervise them to abstain from drinking and make more positive life choices.

We were very much “servants of the courts”. The role was also to deflect petty criminals from overflowing prisons at a time when jail was the punishment for first-time men, women and children offenders.

Following that, the very first probation officers were appointed to Birmingham Children’s Court in 1905. They were two male police constables performing their duties in plain clothes and supervising adults and children as young as 8.

Just two years later, there were 124 male and 19 female missionaries in post supporting police courts. At the time, women were only allowed to supervise women, girls and boys up to age 12.

These officers were so highly valued for their work that, in 1907, the Probation Offenders Act was introduced which gave us a statutory foundation to deliver probation services.

This act essentially turned voluntary pioneering into a statutory responsibility and gave courts the opportunity to sentence people who offended to probation orders for up to three years with various requirements attached. Officers also broadened their scope to work with anyone in trouble regardless of the cause.

The duty of the officers was to advise, assist and befriend with a strong focus on support and life skills.

Over the next few years, the service and our structures expanded quickly. The 1926 Criminal Justice Act gave the Home Secretary at the time the power to prescribe salaries and establish probation committees.

The Probation Journal was established in 1929 and to this day provides a national and international forum for sharing good practice, disseminating criminal justice research and developing debate about the theory and practice of work with people who have offended.

The current editor, Dr Nicola Carr features on one of our Probation Day videos, available on Probation TV, so do watch out for that if you’d like to learn more about its history, purpose and how you can get involved.

Although the two World Wars delayed the development of probation work, by 1948 a single probation order was in force and social enquiry reports (comparable to pre-sentence reports now) before sentence were the norm.

By the time the service celebrated its golden jubilee in 1957 there were approximately 30,000 people on probation.

The 1962 Morrison Report first formally recognised probation officers as professional caseworkers. They were then viewed as equally skilled as people like social workers.

As our organisational objective suggested, our work was very much aligned with social work and providing hands on, practical advice and assistance to those we worked with.

The service progressively moved away from its religious foundation, but we do know that many religious missionaries continued to complete probation work. For example, up until the late sixties there was a nun called Sister Vincent who voluntarily supervised the catholic girls for the City of Manchester Probation Service.

The Probation and After-Care Service was established in 1967 setting out initial plans for bail hostels and introduced parole supervision. Women were also allowed to start supervising adult males for the first time.

In 1971, the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work set up to take over training of probation officers.

This is one of the reasons that a social work qualification was the probation officer requirement until the mid-1990s when specific probation training was introduced. Some of you may remember TPO (Trainee Probation Officer) or the PQF (Probation Qualification Framework) that came before the current PQiP (Professional Qualification in Probation) training programme we now have.

The 1972 Criminal Justice Act saw the introduction of two pivotal probation services: bail hostels (or approved premises as we now know them) and Community Service (or unpaid work), which was also introduced as a sentence of the court.

This marked the beginning of probation becoming a punishment in its own right rather than just an alternative to a prison sentence.

After several years of informal gatherings, with the support of trade union NAPO, the LAGIP (Lesbian and Gay in Probation) network was recognised formally in 1982.

This was an important step forward for the service and the start of a necessary shift to prioritise inclusion and diversity in the workplace. Their main role was to provide support and an opportunity for LGBT+ staff to get together and gain strength and confidence. This was especially important for those who felt isolated and those who were subjected to bigotry and persecution.

Clovis Maidstone Roach was one of the first black probation officers in England who worked for many years in Merseyside. He was awarded an MBE for his dedication to the service in 1977 and retired in 1982 as a magistrate.

In 1984, The Association of Black Probation Officers was founded in London. Its aim was to support black staff and to promote a black view on professional issues.

The 1990s were a decade of great change for us.

Victim contact work became a responsibility of the probation service through the first Victims’ Charter in 1990.

At that time, the service was limited to contact with the families of homicide victims when the offender was approaching release from custody. Later that decade, victim contact was extended further to include notifying victims about the release arrangements of all offenders convicted of a sexual or violent offence which led to a sentence of 12 months or more.

The 1991 Criminal Justice Act introduced the concept of national standards and the early release of prisoners on licence which gave the service a central role in delivering punishment in the community.

Probation became a dependable sentence and pre-sentence reports were introduced in place of ‘social enquiry reports.’ This signified a move away from social work and establishing ourselves as a specialist public protection focused organisation.

This shift away from social work was solidified with the Crime and Disorder Act in 1998. The act introduced increasingly restrictive risk management measures including anti-social behaviour orders, parenting orders, crime and disorder partnerships and home detention curfews for the first time.

The age of criminal responsibility was also changed from 14 years old to 10 in the same year which sparked the founding of the Youth Offending Teams. (Up until 1998, a child under 14 in England and Wales could only be convicted of a crime if the prosecution could prove that they knew what they were doing was wrong.)

The Crime and Disorder Act really set the scene for the launch of the ‘What Works?’ agenda throughout the Probation Service later that year. This focused on prioritising evidence-based practice and realigned the key purpose of probation being to reduce reoffending. This reflected the current political climate and the government’s “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” approach.

The 2000 Criminal Justice and Court Services Act outlined statutory objectives for the service which included public protection.

When the National Probation Service was established in April 2001, the phrase “punishment, rehabilitation and public protection” was used for the first time.

This signalled the end of the Probation Service’s responsibility for civil work and a separate organisation, Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) was established.

National standards were considerably revised, and staff were required for the first time to propose custody in court reports. This changed one of the fundamental values of the service, that we dealt with individuals in the community.

In 2000, the Home Office Minister for Probation at the time, Paul Boateng, famously proclaimed: “We are a law enforcement agency, it’s what we are, it’s what we do.” This demonstrated the shift in narrative towards punishment as one of our primary objectives.

We launched OASys (Offender Assessment System) in 2001 in a bid to standardise risk and needs assessments for the people we work with.

In the same year, we also established Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

2003 saw our approach to people who committed sexual offences change with the Sexual Offences Act which introduced Sexual Offences Prevention Orders (now Sexual Harm Prevention Orders) and Foreign Travel Orders.

This really strengthened the provision of the Sex Offenders Register which was enacted in 1997.