Probation officer : Job description

Probation officers work to rehabilitate offenders by enforcing the conditions of court orders and release licences, conducting offender risk assessments in order to protect the public, and ensuring offenders' awareness of the impact of their crime on their victims and the public.

Each year, probation officers supervise around 225,000 offenders. They make assessments to advise courts, manage and enforce community orders, and work with prisoners during and after sentencing.

Probation officers interact with offenders, victims, police and prison colleagues on a regular basis. They also work closely with local authorities, social services, housing departments and a range of independent and voluntary sector partners.

Typical work activities

The work activities and tasks of a probation officer vary from day to day but typically involve some or all of the following:

• providing pre-sentence reports on people charged with an offence, which help magistrates and judges to decide what sentence should be passed;
• managing and enforcing community orders made by the courts, which may involve participation in group programmes (usually run by specially trained probation officers), ensuring offenders attend supervision with a probation officer, and/or ensuring offenders undertake unpaid work that benefits the community (if offenders do not cooperate, the probation officer will arrange their return to court for a further punishment);
• delivering specialist programmes to change offenders' attitudes and behaviour in order to help reduce further offending;
• providing specialist reports to prison governors and parole review boards that help determine whether a prisoner should be released and, if so, under what conditions (e.g. curfew/tagging order or probation supervision);
• undertaking meticulous record keeping and review processes;
• working with prisoners during and after their sentence, helping them to reintegrate into the community;
  liaising with victims of serious crime to keep them informed about a prisoner's progress in prison;
• gathering feedback from the victim(s) about the impact of the offence and any fears and concerns about the proposed release of the prisoner;
• working with other agencies to help local crime reduction and community safety (e.g. police, local authorities, courts, health services, substance/misuse/drug services, voluntary agencies and youth offending teams);
  managing approved premises (formerly called hostels), which provide accommodation for people on bail or probation or offenders on parole;
• attending court, sometimes to testify about written recommendations in reports.