ABSTRACT
This chapter looks more closely at the main features of privatisation as it applies to the Probation Service. It discusses the three stages of Probation Service. The first begins at the "Golden Age" in the late 1960s and goes up to the 1991 Criminal Justice Act. This is the period in which the first set of controls or restrictions were placed on the Probation Service. It was also the time when the government began introducing its ideas about efficiency and effectiveness into public services. The second stage goes up to the Carter Report, which was perhaps the most significant of all reports in terms of the privatisation of the service. This stage lasts from 1991 to 2003. The third period was from the Carter Review to privatisation in 2014. This stage includes the 2007 Offender Management Act, the Government White Paper Transforming Rehabilitation and the subsequent legislation that introduced much of the "privatisation of the Probation Service."
