ABSTRACT
An increasing number of agencies and individuals perceive a legitimate claim on their local probation service for accountable management of the community penalties. For example: the delivery of supervision programmes is becoming a complex multi-agency exercise as the Service develops its range of financial partnerships with non-statutory organisations, its participation in youth justice teams and its role in implementing new forms of coerced intervention in offenders’ lives; its presence in Drug Action Teams and crime prevention and community safety groups raises questions about the nature of the contribution which its development of the community penalties is supposed to make to the achievement of these bodies’ goals; requirements that the Service represent the interests of real and potential victims in its advice to sentencers constrains the legitimacy of proposals for community penalties in pre-sentence reports. The way in which the Probation Service defines its obligations towards these diverse parties must, therefore, impact on the style and content of the community penalties meted out to offenders.
