ABSTRACT
Probation appeared to be well-placed to face the Brave New World of post-war reconstruction; it would be diffi cult to disagree with Maurice Vanstone’s comment that the early 1950s was ‘an era of confi dence’, although it is notable that he adds a warning that this was ‘Despite the fact that there was no research evidence that probation or the psychodynamic model on which probation practice was purportedly based reduced offending’ (Vanstone 2004a : 106). It is also important to remember that, while there can be little doubt about the general optimism that came with the end of the war and the election of a Labour government in 1945 with its commitment to a welfare state, any such optimism may not have been long-lasting and may have been misplaced. David Kynaston calls his history of 1945-51 Austerity Britain and argues that the six years after the war were ‘in some ways even harder than the war itself’ (Kynaston 2007 : 633). Rationing only ended in the summer of 1954; there was a serious fuel crisis in the winter of 1946-7; the country faced the prospect of economic collapse in 1949. On the other hand, Britain in the 1950s was a dull and complacent society as two different historians agree: ‘Britain in the fi fties was one of the most conservative, stable and contented societies in the world’ (Sandbrook 2006 : 31); ‘A case could easily be made for mid-century Britain as the most settled, deferential, smug, un-dynamic society in the advanced world’ (Hennessy 2006 : 435).
