ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the significance of risk for the function and practice of probation. It discusses probation's role in public protection, especially through the assessment and management of risk. A significant number of prisoners in England and Wales are serving indeterminate sentences; their release date is not specified and depends on assessments of risk and dangerousness. The language of dangerousness raises difficult questions about the assessment and management of people who pose a high risk of harm. Professional relationships are a large part of effective risk management: Supervision is not primarily a surveillance and crime control process. Much of probation's work with individuals assessed as posing a high risk of causing serious harm is undertaken with staff from other agencies, notably from police, prison, health services and local authorities. The chapter concludes with some reflections on risk in the wider criminal justice system and the extent to which society has been made safer by these developments.
