Announcement of the CEP-Workshop „Probation meets prevention„

PROBATION MEETS PREVENTION

CEP Workshop on the aims, tasks and ways of proceeding in probation services with respect to crime prevention

The development in criminal policy in recent years has constantly given rise to new fields of work and has posed new challenges to the probation services in Europe. Examples are: the work with offenders following certified programmes, the organisation and supervision of community service, the use of electronic monitoring and the involvement of victims by the introduction of victim-offender mediation.

The protection of the public and, in relation to that, the involvement of probation services in crime prevention measures has been given special attention in the description of the aims of some national probation organisations.

For this reason the CEP has decided to make „crime prevention“ the subject of an international meeting.
The CEP will organise in Leipzig / Germany and in conjunction with the German Congress on Crime Prevention (Deutscher Präventionstag DPT) and the DBH - Association for Social Work, Criminal Law and Criminal Policy (Fachverband für Soziale Arbeit , Strafrecht und Kriminalpolitik - DBH), a workshop on aims, tasks and procedures of national probation services with special reference to crime prevention. The workshop will take place from 1 to 3 June 2008 during and in the same venue as, the „13th German Congress on Crime Prevention“, the biggest congress in Europe on all topics of crime prevention.

This will enable the participants not only to exchange information, discuss effective working methods, identify trends, develop and phrase recommendations internally, but also to visit plenary sessions or other events within the German Congress on Crime Prevention. It will moreover enable participants to discover new perspectives, challenge their point of view and find fresh chances to cooperate.

The workshop should lead to gaining more knowledge in how far Probation Workers - in addition to prevention of recidivism and/or victim support in individual cases - might contribute to the protection of the community by participating on crime prevention committees, projects and measures.

The preparation of the workshop cannot take place without the active involvement of the CEP members.

It would be desirable to give the participants at the workshop an overview of the different forms in which crime prevention is organised and the methods used, as well as the present national, regional and local state of play in the relationship between probation services and crime prevention in the European countries.

For that reason, the members of CEP are kindly requested to fill in the questionnaire and to send the answers to the secretariat.

It would be very useful if you could answer the questions point by point. If you prefer however to deal with the topic by a complete report, you are kindly asked to use the questions as a guide.

Would you please give the name of a contact person (with e-mail address) in case the preparatory group would like to ask for clarification or illustration?

 

The internal security of a country, the protection of the public against criminal attacks and the prevention of crime are in many countries characterizing factors in their crime policy. The protection of the community is now being mentioned as one of the aims of the probation services. The CEP therefore hopes that its members will express a particular interest of participating in this workshop and in preparing it.

The workshop will be conducted in English.