ABSTRACT
As the 1990s began, it could be said that grave lacuna opened up between social justice research and criminal justice policy and legislative developments. In this legislative and policy turmoil it is not surprising that the probation service nationally and probation areas locally have yet to come fully to grips with implications of the social policy research for probation practice and criminal justice strategies. Government policies and Home Office National Standards/ Guidelines for Probation Service concentrate our efforts on tasks derived from criminal justice issues. Most services have been characterised by an incremental growth of specialists concentrating on one or other of these social policy developments. At local probation area level, a number of management groups have established initiatives to prepare reports and receive papers on the implications of the Lancaster reports and related developments. 'The fragility of hope' is the first casualty in the complex web of social policy and family and individual lives represented in the Lancaster studies.
