Publisher's Synopsis
This book focuses on the core of the eternal punishment debate: what alternatives can be formulated and implemented with sufficient rigour to persuade the judiciary not to send offenders to prison? - - Following extensive observation of the process of sentencing and after interviewing 23 members of the judiciary, 86 probationers and 60 probation officers, the authors detail with delightful insight the tortuous and accident-prone process of successfully recommending a probation order, persuading a member of the judiciary to make it, managing to allocate a supervising officer to the case and then actually supervising the term of probation. - - As the first full insider account of just what being on probation actually means û to sentence, supervisor and probationer û this book plumbs the expectations and experiences of the participants and teases out the meaning of whole process and practice of probation itself.
