Crime, Justice & Security Statistics
Probation Statistics
Part 1
Produced in Collaboration between World Bank Institute and
the Development Data Group (DECDG)
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Relation to other Modules
• Probation Statistics do not exist on their own. They are closely
related to statistics from other agencies of the justice system:
especially the courts and the prisons and to the general principles
for statistical governance.
• As a consequence, other Modules in this area could also be studied
with benefit:
– Module 1 (Governance)
– Module 5 (Courts)
– Module 7 (Prisons)
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Probation process
• Police catch offenders: prosecutors ensure evidence is good
enough: courts find many offenders guilty of the crime
• The probation service works with the court in dealing with offenders:
• It supervises offenders that have been given community sanctions
• It supervises prisoners who have completed their sentence, or are
serving some of their sentence in the community
• It advises the court on the social consequences of sentencing
• In many countries its role goes wider than the justice system itself,
dealing with problems to do with vulnerable children
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Structural Position of the Probation
Service
• Most developed countries and a growing number of developing
countries have a probation service but some do not yet
• Different ministries supervise the probation service in different
countries
• Sometimes this is a stand alone service:
• Sometimes it lies within another justice service, such as the prisons
service or even the courts service.
• Sometimes it lies within ministries dealing with children’s issues.
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Types of probation supervision
(Statistics on workload/outcomes)
More common
Less common
• Probation Order
• Community Service Order
• After-care following release
from prison
• Supervision instead of
imprisonment
• Attending offender programs
as a condition of supervision
•
•
•
•
Electronic tagging
Curfew
Intensive supervision
Restorative or Community
Justice
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Other roles of Probation Service
• Giving social reports to the court
• Advising the courts on sentencing
• Dealing with young people at risk of offending:
• Orphans
• Those from criminal families
• Those being placed for adoption
• Statistics needed on all these where relevant
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Types of Probation Statistics
Whatever aspect of the Probation Service we are monitoring, there are
three basic types of statistics that will be useful for managing and
reporting on the Probation service.
1.
2.
3.
Workload Statistics, which show the number of cases that the
probation service is faced with
Outcome Statistics, which show the outcomes of supervisions
that the Probation service has been dealing with.
Resource Statistics, including staff, buildings, and equipment
Targets could be set for each of these types of statistics: caseload per probation officer
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Sources of Probation data
• Data-collection should be designed for the local
probation office starting when an offender has his name
entered on the Probation Service’s books.
• Probation Staff open a file for each new case.
• Case files should contain information on
• Unique case identifier for each offender (criminal)
• Offence convicted of and date of conviction
• Type of probation supervision given and Length of
supervision
• Basic characteristics of each offender (eg. age and
sex)
• Outcome of supervision order: eg completed
satisfactory/breached.
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Workload Statistics – General
• Workload Statistics show the amount of work that the probation
service has dealt with over a particular period
• These will usually be about the supervision cases that the probation
service deals with
• But other work will need to be recorded (eg advice given by the
probation service to the court on social background or sentencing
possibilities) as they use up resources and are often considered
separately from the main case
• Data should be collected on a monthly basis from each probation
office
• Statistics of numbers of staff employed should also be collected
with workload statistics
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Workload Statistics – Probation
supervision example
Probation Office…….
Month……
Caseload at
start of
month
Cases
received
Cases ended
Successfully
Caseload at
end of month
Main type of supervision
Probation Order
Community Service
Order
After-Care
Instead of prison
Attending offender
programmes
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Workload Statistics – Classifications
• The probation service does not need to collect a large amount of
detailed workload statistics
• But it will need to ensure that the classifications used are the same
as those used by the police, the courts and the prison service
• This is to make sure that data can be compared uniformly across all
agencies
• An example is the broad offence classification, which will need to be
agreed at a Crime Statistics Committee usually chaired by the CSO
• The procedure for this is covered in Module 1.
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Probation workload trends
National Data
2004
2005
2006
2007
Caseload at start of year
Cases received during year
Cases concluded
Caseload at end of period
Change in workload during year
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Outcome statistics – general
The probation service works to ensure all types of
supervision are completed satisfactorily: This involves monitoring:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Cases supervised that conclude satisfactorily:
Supervisions that fail because the offender commits another offence
Supervisions that fail due to bad offender behavior
Supervisions that fail because offenders do not attend as required.
Supervisions referred again to the court.
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Outcome Probation Statistics
Type of
supervision…..
Month….
Homicide
Assault
Robbery
Theft
Sexual, ……
Cases completed
satisfactorily
Offender re-offends
Offender behaves
badly
Offender does not
attend
Case referred to
court again
Fails for other
reason
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.
Outcome Trends
Probation
Office……..
2006
2007
2008
2009
Outcome of
supervisions
Cases completed
satisfactorily
Offender reoffends
Offender
behaves badly
Offender does
not attend
Case referred to
court again
Fails for other
reason
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Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved.