The field of international probation has been surprisingly under-investigated by researchers or policymakers. While in a solely European context, the legal and administrative implications for criminal justice concerning reductions in border controls and the freedom of movement on the labour market have begun to be examined by international criminal justice orginizations, including those in policing and probation, there are still many outstanding, crucial questions relating to criminal justice and the nature of probation that have still to be addressed. This text represents the findings of a study conducted by the United Nations Crime and Justice Research Unit which should be useful at an international level in instituting probation systems. It reviews the disparate existing literature on comparative probation and by reworking data received from the national experts in ten selected case study countries, it offers an analysis of probation around the world. It should also provide useful reading for students of criminal justice and criminology and for professionals working in probation management and government.

This is a study of probation in countries, ranging from the well-resourced and heavily professionalized services of Britain and the old Commonwealth to the reliance on lay-supervisors in Japan. The study is the result of collaborative research involving the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), the British Home Office and experts in the ten countries in the study: Australia, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sweden, England, Wales and Scotland. The results paint a picture of probation systems in a state of flux. Faced with rising crime, the more industrialized countries have placed renewed importance on probation as a means not only of reducing reoffending but also of containing burgeoning prison populations. This has led to more overtly "correctionalist" systems than before.