Researching Risk in the Probation Service

This paper will draw upon research and consultancy experience across a number of projects on risk assessment and management in the Probation Service between 1993 and 1999. The projects reflect a range of sponsors and funders, from central government bodies such as the Home Office and the Scottish Office, to professional, managerial and employment bodies such as the Association of Chief Officers of Probation and the Central Council of Probation Committees, to individual Probation Service areas. The projects have required engagement with different levels of staff and different vested interests, including the professional/union bodies representing the management and officer grades respectively, in addition to central government policy makers. All the projects have had an applied policy and practice focus. The paper begins with a review of current ethical and political dilemmas in research on offender risk assessment, and then contemporary responses to ethical dilemmas are critically reviewed, followed by an outline of 'practice guidance' for researchers. The paper concludes by arguing that researchers in the social arena should be subject to the same standards of defensible decision making as their counterparts in social care practice, and that essential to such defensibility is the transparent demonstration of the 'grounds' upon which ethical decisions are made.