ABSTRACT

Though imprisonment tends to dominate our conceptions of punishment, it is not and has never been the principal mode of criminal sanctioning in most jurisdictions (Sparks and McNeill, 2009). Even taking the most extreme example, it remains the case that at the end of 2007 there were more than twice as many people on probation as in custody in the USA; 5.1 million people were under probation or parole supervision at that time (Glaze and Bonczar, 2009). European figures are harder to establish given the wide range of definitions and forms of community sanctions and differences in the official recording of their use. However, on the basis of Van Kalmthout and Durnescu's (2008) extensive recent survey, Durnescu (2007) estimates that when in 2006 the prison population in Europe was about 2 million people, the population serving community sanctions and measures was about 3.5 million. Moreover, in many jurisdictions this is a rapidly growing population. In England and Wales, the total caseload of offenders supervised by the Probation Service grew from 175,600 in 2000 to 243,400 in 2008; a 39 per cent increase (Wheatley, 2010). In Scotland, the numbers of community sanctions imposed in Scotland rose from about 11,000 in 1999–2000 to over 17,800 by 2008–09 — a 62 per cent increase (Scottish Government, 2010).