NCJ Number
93699
Editor(s)
J Bunton
Date Published
1981
Length
78 pages
Annotation
This report summarizes over 30 seminars and workshops for probation officers. Topics addressed included chronic offenders, the probation officer's role, job placement, casework decisions, programs for juveniles, substance abuse, and stress management.
Abstract
An official from the Ministry of Correctional Services (Canada) presented data on chronic young offenders and his view of the criminal personality. Other speakers addressed the use of discretion in police and probation work, the shift of the probation officer's role to a broker/advocate model, and relationships between psychiatric and probation services. Workshops gave advice on placing l5 to 24-year-olds in jobs, interviewing clients, counseling youth through a fitness program, and why siblings of delinquents from the same disadvantaged environment do not become delinquents. Topics explored in other sessions were gay adolescents, an alternative care program for West Indians in Toronto, and a health care center for teenage mothers. One speaker presented a continuum of addictions; a social worker analyzed critical decisions involving dangerous offenders; and a judge discussed the use of probation orders, warnings, and forms in juvenile cases. Representatives from the Justice for Children organization and the Portage self-help project for substance abusers described their programs. Seminars relating to the workplace discussed yoga exercises, the quality of working life concept, and employee benefits. Suicide, mentally retarded offenders, computerized information systems, and parent education were among the various subjects considered in other workshops.