ABSTRACT

Just like the police court missionaries, John Augustus insisted that the person took the pledge. In fact, the focus of his early interest was drunkards, and for the first year of his activities, he would secure a small fine on the evidence of their improved behavior. Categorizing the activities of the police court missionaries and the first probation officers as a distinct entity in the history of probation work is problematic. This chapter discusses early practice as the work of police court missionaries and probation officers up to 1920, and approximately a decade before the word casework was first used by a probation officer. Stedman Jones suggests that the term moral panic might be restrictive because during this period the press was 'full of warnings' about the danger of revolution. By the time that Leeson and Chinn were practising as probation officers, what Garland describes as the Modern Complex was well established.