PROBATION

Whether Probation as opposed to Prison Time

Whether Probation as opposed to Prison Time

The term probation derived from the Latin noun probatio, meaning a period of proving or testing is both the name of a court disposal (now renamed in America) and of services which administer such orders. Offenders who placed on probation given an alternative to harsher sentences, allowing them to remain in the community under supervision, subject to specified conditions. The concept has symbolic significance because of its association with certain principles and values (Vanstone 2004).

It is a tribute to the resilience of traditional probation values that the National Probation Service of America in the first decade of the twenty-first century retains the concept of probation within its title, even though probation orders no longer exist as such, and despite the efforts of successive governments to change the name (Nellis 2004). Although the policies and objectives of the service have undergone much revision, the name carries strong symbolic value and, therefore, at a time of tremendous change, provides some continuity with the purposes and principles of the service in the past. Depending on perspective, it is a rubric that may be regarded as either sacrosanct or anachronistic. The nature of probation as a court disposal is variable across time and country, but the following definition captures common characteristics:

Probation is a system of dealing with persons found guilty of crimes of lesser gravity. Wherein these, instead of being sent to prison or otherwise punished, released on suspended sentence during ethical behavior, and placed. Under the supervision, of a probation officer who acts as a friend and adviser, but who in case of the failure of the probationer to fulfill the terms of his probation, can report him back to the court(Garland 2007).

This court order has long been associated with alternatives to harsher sentences. Being a substitute for Prison time is part of probations long-term identity: Without the Prison time, it would have been difficult for probation to assume an identity as a penal provision because prison was the main form of punishment and probation was instead of punishment. It was in this sense that it was always an alternative to imprisonment, and the theory and practice of probation cannot be fully articulated outside that function (Feeley & Simon 2002). More broadly, probation imposed instead of punishment; in America, it was not until the Criminal Justice Act 1991 that probation became a penalty in its own right, changing the ethos of a probation order to punishment in the community. Probation orders renamed community rehabilitation orders in 2000, and further changes introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. For offences committed since April 2005, the nearest equivalent to the old probation order is a community order with the requirement of supervision.

Precursors of probation as a practice can be traced to English criminal law of the Middle Ages. When courts first made use of binding over and recognizance payment of a fee as collateral for a period of release during which the ...