Demystifying Criminal Justice Social Work in India by Chong Mark; Francis Abraham P;

Author:Chong, Mark; Francis, Abraham P;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications

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Reviving Criminal Justice Social Work through Probation in India: Historical Solutions to Contemporary Problems

Roshni Nair and Vijay Raghavan

Introduction

Probation as a community-based alternative to imprisonment has been in existence for a little over two centuries now. Its origins have been traced to the harshness of English penal law in the Middle Ages and subsequent developments in Britain and the United States in the early and mid-nineteenth century. It gradually spread as a movement across the world and came to be established as a scientific method of rehabilitation of offenders by the twentieth century. By the 1950s, probation was being celebrated for its cost-effectiveness and harm-reducing results on the offenders’ lives in comparison to imprisonment as a penal philosophy. Probation as a sentencing tool was based on the premise that the individual alone cannot be held responsible for the wrongdoing he/she was convicted for; society has a role in helping the person make amends, through a re-learning process which plays out within the social milieu and citizenship space of the offending individual.

The probation officer (PO) has been a key player in the probation system right from the days of John Augustus (considered to be the ‘Father of Probation’ during the nineteenth century), and literature abounds on the myriad roles he/she plays from identifying ‘eligible’ cases, filing social investigation reports, supervision, mentoring, to monitoring and reporting relapses. It has also been well recognised that many of the roles and responsibilities of the PO require social work grounding and skills. In fact, social work and probation share a historical connection. There is evidence to show that the correctional social worker and the PO cross their paths at many points in their developmental journeys (Panakkal & Dighe, 1961).

The movement from an institutional to a community focus form of punishment emerged by the 1970s in the United States (Johnson, 1978, p. 527, cited in Srivastava, 1980, p. 135; Rosenthal & Luger, 1974, p. 19, cited in Srivastava, 1980, p. 135). The US National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973, p. 1, cited in Srivastava, 1980, p. 136) highlighted the limitations of correctional institutions, stating that they brought about more negative change and made successful reintegration back into the community less likely. It came to be recognised that correctional agencies alone cannot correct criminal behaviour as crime was rooted in social causes (Carney, 1977, p. 43, cited in Srivastava, 1980, p. 135). This change in ideology generated further discussion concerning rehabilitation and its challenges. The rehabilitation of the offender is seen now as the joint effort of the offender, professional social worker and the community.

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