Probation also moved on in the 1990's as it became responsible for developing partnerships with other agencies, such as employment agencies and alcohol and drug counsellors, so that offenders in the community can be more effectively managed. .
On the 1st April 2001, the Probation and Police Service became the responsible authority' in protecting the public, working collaboratively with other agencies. (Induction Handbook, 2003).
Paul Boateng, Minister for Prisons and Probation stated with confidence, .
"We are a law enforcement agency. Its what we are, it's what we do."" .
(National Standards, 2001. Opening page.) .
The National Probation Service's aims are to protect the public, to reduce re-offending, the proper punishment of offenders in the community, ensuring offenders awareness of the effects of crime on the victims of crime and the public and also, to rehabilitate offenders. It operates within the Governments Correctional Policy Framework, contributing primarily to the Home Office Aim 3, to ensure the effective delivery of justice, through efficient investigation, detection, prosecution and court procedures. To minimise the threat to, and intimidation of witnesses and to engage with and support victims and the Home Office Aim 4 to deliver effective custodial and community sentences to reduce re-offending and protect the public. (A New Choreography, 2001, p.4).
The Probation Service now works within a structure of National Standards, which has been in force since 1992. The standards are to reassure sentencers and the public that probation is not a soft option' and that failing to cooperate with supervision will not be accepted without challenge. (Hedderman, C., Hearnden, I. 2001, p.216).
Over the course of the years, the National Probation Service maxim of advise, assist, befriend' has shifted to an, in itself far more punitive ethos of supervise, rehabilitate and enforce' this shows the change in approach and responsibility within the probation service, however the old social worker' attitude appears to have lingered in the minds of the general public who are still not so aware of the drastic advances which have taken place.
