| In this paper we describe a Home Office commissioned study of the current state of the prison voluntary after-care system in England and Wales. It concerns those prisoners who have served sentences of less than twelve months and whom the probation supervises on a voluntary basis, an activity that has been aligned closely to the rehabilitative tradition of the Probation Service. However, in recent years it has been accorded less and less priority in contrast to the burgeoning systems of automatic and discretionary conditional release and an accompanying concentration of resources. This has left a gap in provision which, we argue, not only raises questions about the management of risk and public protection but also about the legitimacy of the Criminal Justice System in so far as that legitimacy is based on its ability to provide people who offend with the opportunity to reform. A core argument of this paper is that the uncertainty about the status and future of voluntary after-care is, therefore, a matter of concern. |
Updated 05/20/2006