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This article, co-authored by the Chief Executive of the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, Amanda Stewart, and the Director of the Probation Service, Mark Wilson (retired September 2025), sets out their reflections and insights on how both organisations work in and with communities to prevent reoffending and rehabilitate and reintegrate those serving community sentences and those subject to licence in the community.
Community is at the heart of probation practice, and this article considers in detail what that means. Individuals subject to probation are part of communities and even when they receive custodial sentences, in most cases, they will eventually return to those communities.
Many of the people under probation supervision have highly complex needs and require a broad range of support and assistance if they are to make better choices for themselves and their communities. The strong ties that have been developed with voluntary and community partners enable support for individuals to be provided at a local level.
Those ties also facilitate consistency and structure in the lives of those who have offended, after the statutory services have completed their role. Effective engagement with communities to help raise awareness and understanding of the impact of probation and respond to community concerns is essential, too. Our statutory and community partnerships provide a forum to enable this engagement to take place but undoubtedly there is much more to do.
Better and more meaningful engagement with all communities, including those harder-to-reach communities, will lead to enhanced community confidence in the role of probation to change lives and help build safer streets, towns and neighbourhoods for all.