Editorial:Social work in criminal justice

Although this is a thematic issue it is also very eclectic one covering a significant number of topics beginning with history, continuing with institutional aspects and perceptions coming from the neighboring professions and ending with some sensitive and innovative practices.

The first article of the journal provides, from a historical perspective, some of the first institutionalized initiatives of offender rehabilitation in Romania coming from 1874: Patronage Society or supervision committee’s. By analyzing some documents one could conclude that in spite the fact that these initiatives were esteemed and in line with other initiatives in other states, the activity in these societies was precluded by a number of political and financial difficulties.
It seems that the concept of “governmentality gap” (McNeill et al, 2009)i was not a secret for the Romanian states in those times. However what is important to emphasize is that some probation vestiges may be fund in Romania before the end of the XIX Century.

Probation as an institution spread rapidly across the world especially after the beginning of the XX Century when most of the states regulated in their domestic law legal tactics such as: defferend prosecution or defferend sentence, pre-sentence reports and so on. Currently most of the EU countries have set up a probation system. However the stage of development, the tasks and the priorities or the dilemmas specific to each of them are as divers as the social protection or the judicial systems in Europe. The articles of McCulloch & McNeill, Burke, Svensson and also Lulei describe some of the current concerns of the probation services in four different regions: Scotland, England and Wales, Scandinavian countries and Slovakia. Most of the achievements or difficulties presented in these four articles are strongly connected with the stage of probation development or the socio-judicial context in which probation service is deployed. Although the occupational profile of the probation officer is quite close to the social work one those two professions were brutally separated in England and Wales starting with 1997. Since then a probation offices in England and Wales has to graduate from a special program called Diploma of Probation Studies. From 2010 NOMS prepares new changes that aim at improving probation training in order to respond to some administrative and pragmatic challenges.

A different idea can be concluded from the Schiaucu and Sandu articles that demonstrateconvincingly that in the Romanian context probation practice has a lot in common with the social work one. Similarities can be spotted at the macro level – in terms of law or the overarching knowledge – and also at the micro level – in terms of principles and values.

Another major concern of the Romanian probation system is the development of effective tools for offender assessment and also interventions towards behavioral change. One such a tool demanded in the What Works literature is the risk assessment instrument. The Saucan et all article introduces some of the findings of a large study on the personality factors associated with re-offending among juveniles. These factors might be included in such an instrument for risk assessment.

Probation services in Romania have a privileged relationship with the courts (some would say that probation services even serve the courts!). Oancea and Tomita articles shed some light over what judges think about the pre-sentence reports and also about the effectiveness of probation supervision. It is worthwhile to note here Oancea’s conclusion, which contradicts the professional wisdom that, when reading the pre-sentence report, judges are interested more in reading the section concerning the reintegration perspective. On the contrary they seem to be more interested in getting the social or psychological data regarding the offender. The reintegration perspectives are entirely based on their judgment that have access to all the perspectives involved: offender, victim, prosecutor and so on. To conclude it seems that judges expect from the pre-sentence reports to provide solid and reliable social and psychological data useful in the process of sentence individualization.

Many ex-inmates complain about the stigma of “ex-convict” that prevents them to have access to a job or to a new identity as non-offender. Evans article describes just a few mechanisms for judicial rehabilitation that can contribute to the process of de-labeling of an ex-prisoner and help him to consolidate the belief that “he is a desister”.

Haley, Cole & Blythe and Berne & Trias describe some of the most innovative practices in terms of probation education or interventions. Haley presents in a very personal way how Blog Talk Radio could contribute to the justice debates and also to the initial or continuous education of justice professionals. Cole & Blythe and Berne & Trias demonstrate how mentoring or tactics specific to social pedagogy could increase the effectiveness of the human services in the context of criminal justice system.

As for the book review section of the journal two books were selected as they are very close to the subject of this issue. The first book review is dedicated to the book edited by van Kalmthout and Durnescu (2008) – Probation in Europe. This book comprises a comprehensive description of 32 probation services from almost all over Europe. The second review is dedicated to the Saucan at all study that was mentioned above and focuses on the personality factors that are associated to juvenile re-offending.

Having describing you all of the articles included in this special issue I hope I have made you wanting to continue reading them all.