Community Sentences and their Outcomes in Jersey: the third report

This report is the third in a continuing series which aims to provide a regularly updated evaluation of
the outcomes of the Jersey Probation and After-Care Service’s work, and its contribution to
community safety, crime reduction and the rehabilitation of offenders. To put this work into context,
readers should be aware that the work of probation services is notoriously difficult to measure and
evaluate. There are hundreds of probation services in the world: the latest survey of probation work in
Europe alone covers 32 countries (Van Kalmthout and Durnescu 2008) but very few of them are able
to document the outcomes of their work or to specify what difference they make to offenders. The
Jersey service is one of very few that can, largely thanks to the conscientiousness of its staff and
managers and the quality of data that they provide. As a result, Jersey’s probation work has attracted
international attention (see, for example, Raynor and Miles 2007; Raynor 2008) and has contributed
to the establishment of an international research network studying probation practice (CREDOS, the
Collaboration of Researchers for the Development of Effective Offender Supervision). Research
related to Jersey’s probation work has been discussed in at least eight international criminological
conferences, and the research collaboration between Swansea University and the Jersey Probation
and After-Care Service has also provided the basis for the Jersey Crime and Society Project, a series
of linked research projects which now also include a study of the Parish Hall Enquiry system (Miles
2004; Miles and Raynor 2005) and ongoing studies of community safety