QUALITY AND EFFECTIVENESS IN PROBATION OFFICERS’ REPORTS TO SENTENCERS

Abstract
Preparations to implement the 1991 Criminal Justice Act in England and Wales included a pilot study organized by the Home Office to assess the impact of introducing pre-sentence reports in a wider range of cases in the Crown Courts. This paper reports some findings from the study concerning the variable quality of probation officers' reports; the level of agreement between the researchers' assessments of quality and those made by sentencers in the Crown Courts; and the impact of low and high quality reports on the sentencing process.

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