Recommendation 39

The Probation Service is going through an identity crisis. The role of a probation officer has changed in recent years—the increased focus on public protection distracts the attention of probation staff away from least-serious offenders. Moreover, the expectation that they refer offenders to services provided by others, and the quantity of administrative tasks they are expected to perform, often on flawed IT systems, transforms their mission into an unfulfilling job and means that they have reduced capacity to support low-level offenders on community sentences.