ABSTRACT
In the literature of Probation and Youth Offending work the actual word ‘forensic’ is a term that rarely appears. Yet in England and Wales, with individuals who have offended, the core forensic role in community settings has been undertaken by Probation or Youth Offending staff, and they have been doing so for many years. In fact, at the time of writing, in England and Wales well over 200,000 sentenced offenders aged 18 or over are being managed by one of 35 Probation Trusts at any one time, while around 100,000 sentenced offenders aged under 18 are managed by one of 158 Youth Offending Teams or Services, the precise numbers vary depending on which cases are being counted (https://www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/youth-justice" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/youth-justice). In Scotland in 1968 the Probation function was taken into the local authority and the then generic Social Work Departments, although in more recent years each local Head of Criminal Justice Social Work has become increasingly subject to central (Scottish) government direction. In Northern Ireland the Probation Board provides Probation services for both young people and adults. In the United States probation is the most common form of sentencing for offenders and two-thirds of offenders are serving community sentences supervised by Probation on any one day (Petersilia, 1997).
