ABSTRACT
The interest in developmental processes has been one of the most exciting growth areas in criminology in recent years, and has been important in shaping both conceptions and knowledge concerning criminal careers. In a number of publications, Pawson and Tilley have argued that too little attention has been paid to the methodologies used to evaluate criminal justice interventions. Realist philosophy has attempted to avoid both positivist and relativist theorising in its explanations of social events. Employment training courses, probationers, probation officers and probation services are embedded in wider social contexts. The criminal career literature has become heavily influenced by a set of ideas commonly referred to as the developmental. The work of a probation officer, for example, may be deemed ‘useless’ by a particular probationer even before he or she has commenced an order.
