A new research unit at Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC is currently involved in research exploring Prevent case characteristics. Kerry Ellis Devitt, Probation Practice Researcher, sets the context and considers the implications for probation work.
The probation service holds a great deal of responsibility for both managing and safeguarding people’s lives. The cornerstone of the service is its calculations of risk. What is an individual’s risk of reoffending? What is the risk of that person being reconvicted? And to what extent does this person pose a risk of harm to the public? (Ministry of Justice, 2009). Though largely this risk of harm is focused on the threat to society in rather individualised ways linked to particular offending patterns, (i.e. risk of harm to a particular person; risk of harm to a business etc.) the service, and its front-line staff, must also be aware of an individual’s risk of more widespread and devastating harm – that represented by the threat of terrorism. But where is probation focusing its gaze when it comes to identifying such risk?
