“To contribute to safer communities by rehabilitating and reintegrating people who offended”

Community sanctions and measures have a long history in Europe, spanning over a century. Community sanctions and measures are sanctions and measures which maintain suspects or offenders in the community and involve some restrictions on their liberty through the imposition of conditions and/ or obligations.

The overuse of pre-trial detention is a public policy concern capable of causing different dysfunctions of the criminal justice systems which can, in turn, undermine the rule of law, lead to various breaches of human rights.

We live in a rapidly changing world were technology plays an important role. Within a second, we have access to all the information we need and more. Technology in probation is rapidly changing and expanding as well. Nowadays, things like electronic monitoring, applications and virtual reality are used by probation officers in their daily work. Something we could have never thought of ten years ago. What sort of technology will we use in ten years?

Besides technology that probation officers can use in their daily work, the access to technology also created a new sort of offender: cybercriminals. Offenders that use technology to commit crimes.

In 2017 the European Commission Directorate General for Justice, highlighted its interest in the training of probation professionals. CEP was encouraged to work on creating a network of experts on the training of probation professionals at European level. This interest was formalized in the report prepared by the European Commission, “Evaluation of the 2011 European Judicial Training Strategy and preparation of the future 2019-2025 strategy”, which expanded the range of professional categories to be included in the new European Commission’s Judicial Training Strategy for the coming years and included probation professionals.

CEP members also highlighted their interest in the topic of education and training of probation staff. In a context of a rapid development of the criminal justice field and the growing importance of probation measures as more effective and with less economic cost, the training of Probation professionals has become crucial and challenging. In addition, the transfer of probation supervision orders between Member States has emphasised the need for comparable and equivalent practice across jurisdictions. In these circumstances, it is important to share knowledge and training expertise across Europe, train probation staff as specialized professionals and to share good practices, training methodologies and materials to assure quality training and practice.

CEP is working on the following objectives:

• to create a solid expert network in the field of education and training of probation staff at a pan-European level;
• to exchange experiences and best practices between countries and bodies in the field of education and training;
• to share knowledge updates in relation to legislative developments, intervention Guidelines from the European Commission and the Council of Europe and other research findings;
• to  have an information data base and central resource point on innovation and good practices presented at CEP expert network and other meetings on the CEP website.

Electronic monitoring (EM) has matured into a commonplace penal tool used widely across Europe and beyond. Its applications appear to be limitless and its purposes diverse.

It is used in the areas of mental health, domestic violence, terrorism and immigration and diverse target groups including mental health patients, children and young people, victims of domestic violence as well as offenders.

EM also creates new challenges. For example, it leads to questions about whether, and in what ways, EM replaces, develops and/or improves the traditional roles of probation services; the extent to which the police and families are and/or should be involved in ‘supervising’ offenders; and the most effective and efficient ways of providing supervision and support for monitored individuals.

At the same time it creates opportunities to join up different areas of public and social policy and to act as a catalyst for meaningful multi-agency and multi-sector working thereby enabling a more holistic view of monitored individuals to be taken.

The dangers caused by violent extremism in European countries are paramount concerns of the criminal justice system. Prison and probation programs are two working fields where radicalisation, as well as deradicalisation meet. It is therefore important that prison and probation programs play an effective role in preventing violent extremism and raising knowledge regarding (de) radicalisation. Firstly, because people who are sentenced for executing radical acts, end up there. A part of them will remain hardboiled and are determined to be faithful to their ideology. Others might want to quit their radical activities or want to stop being a member of a radicalised group. A third group are prisoners who are at risk of being recruited and get radicalised during imprisonment.

CEP contributes to the EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy and the EU Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism by playing an active role in the Prison and Probation Working Group of the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) of the EU Directorate-General Home Affairs and by raising awareness on these issues among its members by organising meetings and events.

According to the Council of Europe definition, Gender-based violence is violence directed against a person or group of people because of their factual or perceived sex, gender, sexual orientation and/or gender identity and that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately (mainly women and girls but it can also affect men and boys). Gender-based violence can be sexual, physical, verbal, psychological (emotional), or socio-economic and it can take many forms, from verbal violence and hate speech on the Internet, to rape or murder. It can be perpetrated by anyone: a current or former spouse/partner, a family member, a colleague from work, schoolmates, friends, an unknown person, or people who act on behalf of cultural, religious, state, or intra-state institutions. Although women and girls are the main victims of GBV, it also causes severe harm to families and communities.

Probation bodies and practitioners across Europe and worldwide together with other criminal justice professionals are among those on the frontline of preventing violence by supervising and providing specialized treatment and programmes, guidance, and assistance to offenders. To support all aspects of rehabilitation and at the same time treatment process there is a need for cooperation among various actors and different European jurisdictions dealing with similar situations. CEP created the Expert group on Gender-based violence in the Probation field. The aim is also to improve management, to find and share good practices and inspiring examples around Europe as well as to advocate and act as the voice of this specific topic in the European Probation field.

The European Union and the Council of Europe have become increasingly important players in the development of probation in Europe. CEP is not only the voice of probation in Europe, it also wants to stimulate and support initiatives of international cooperation on probation and on the implementation of EU regulations. Below you will find all the information about the implementation of Framework Decisions  2009/829/JHA and 2008/947/JHA.