PROBATION - THE SECOND CHANCE

Hardback. This was the first comprehensive, general account of the use of probation against crime in Britain. Such a book had long been needed but, because the relationship with the offender is confidential, probation officers themselves usually hesitated to write about their unusual profession. The Home Office, however, granted the author special research facilities so that a wider public could be told what happens to offenders who had been given the second chance of probation. Here, subject to safeguards to conceal their identities, are the stories of men and women on probation - both 'successes' and 'failures', middle-aged as well as adolescents. The author unravels the character and problems of each offender - the arrogant adolescent beyond his parents' control, old lags on 'after-care', the compulsive shop-lifter, 'self-punishers', homosexuals, the prostitute and her ponce, a girl who commits incest, the 'inadequates' and their subworld of dosshouses, husbands driven to crime by jealousy, a mother-in-law, impotence...The dramas that are lived out behind the drop-scene of everyday uneventfulness are recreated with a realism that never fails to be humane and compassionate. The book ends with the author's own critical, often pungent, assessment of the effectiveness of probation and its contribution to penal reform. With Short Bibliog. and Index. 280pp. 8vo. h/back. With signs of b/plate removal from fpd, o/w Vg+ in v. sl. sunned Vg+ pcdw.