ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the perspectives – ones that propose different starting points and other ways of understanding the processes of personal change, with implications for the way in which probation can work with the processes. It discusses the findings from desistance research and also considers their implications for probation practice. The good lives model reaffirms the value of the professional relationship between probation officer and client, needs and responsivity lost sight of, but is now increasingly recognising as indispensable to offender engagement, supporting change and bringing about compliance. Motivation is complex and changeable; there is no simple distinction between those who are and those who are not 'motivated to change'. The model has proved popular with practitioners and clients, no doubt because it accords with people's own experiences of the to-ing and fro-ing of trying to change. The chapter concludes with the motivation and compliance, without attention to which the very viability of community supervision must be in question.
