SILENT WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 59, 10 March 1936, Page 5

SILENT WORKERS

PROBATION OFFICERS

MAKING NEW LIVES

Courts of justice are always before the public; sentences for crimes of varying degree are read and forgotten, with perhaps a mental note that a particular counsel succeeded in his plea for mitigation of penalty; but the men who bear the onerous task of winning the confidence of wrongdoers and trying to shape new lives from those: stained by crime earn scarcely a thought. It is the kindly guidance of the probation officers, who work silently and without publicity, _ that prevents many incipient criminals from becoming, habitual law-breakers. Some authorities aver that a criminal (tendency is inbred and cannot be eradicated, and to a certain extent this is borne out by records. Often it will be found that young men scarcely out of their teens who appear before a Court have been in trouble as juveniles, have not taken advantage of their opportunities, and have not responded to treatment. In other cases, however, lack of guidance has been responsible for lapses, and the interest taken by a probation officer in such cases has been fruitful.

When a' man is placed on probation for theft, for instance, the duty of the probation officer does not end at seeing that restitution is made at the required intervals and that reports are made regularly. He gives counsel and acts as a friend, proffering advice on any problem that might be worrying the man attempting to make good. He is no taskmaster, and when he prosecutes for a breach of the terms of probation. it is usually on extreme provocation that prove the probationer to be utterly recalcitrant.

But this modelling of hundreds of lives that is going on every day and every year receives little public recognition, although it is one of the most important factors in the adequate protection of society. Where fines and imprisonment are found to be useless as a deterrent, the sympathetic treatment of probation officers has been found to be effective.

Probation was first adopted in New Zealand in 1886, on the passing of the First Offenders Probation Act, and until the passing of the Offenders Probation Act, in 1920, probation was applied exclusively to first offenders. Now, however, it is open to the Courts to exercise a free discretion as to what cases should be admitted to probation. Owing to the initial Act being limited to first offenders, probation popularly became recognised as the "first chance" given to first offenders. But that was not the intention of the Legislature. The rationale of the system is that the Courts shall have regard to the character and personal history of a person convicted of an offence, and only in the cases where the Court is satisfied that the best interests of the public and the offender would be served by release is the offender to be so released; but release on probation is conditioned liberty.

It will be seen that probation is a substitute for punishment, as it definitely involves a curtailment of liberty, but it does not depend solely on the coercive sanctions of authority. The Department, with the aid of pub-lic-spirited citizens who co-operate with probation officers, aims at readjustment in the community, under a system of firm but sympathetic and constructive. .oversight. . .