ABSTRACT
The prison casts its long and sombre shadow over many aspects of probation’s history, its policies, practices and organisation. Dismay at the sheer pointlessness of sentence after sentence of imprisonment was a stimulus to the development of probation originally. At times, probation has declared the provision of alternatives to imprisonment as its principal purpose and Secretaries of State have often spoken as if the main worth of probation lies in its potential contribution to reducing the prison population – although, as we saw in Chapter 5, any such potential has seldom been realised. In a quest for ‘credibility’, probation has sometimes attempted to present itself as prison-like in its capacity to punish and to protect the public.
