What were the Counter-arguments against criticisms?

Counter-arguments against criticisms

1. Probation is neither leniency nor pampering the offender. He is selected for this kind of treatment only after the court decides that there is a reasonable probability that he will adjust the community and that his living in the society will not be a threat to its security.

2. Imposition of conditions and curbing the freedom of the offender is in itself a punishment for him. Besides, if he does not abide by the conditions of the court, he can be committed to an institution. Probation thus does not eliminate all pain. The condition of reporting to the probation officer from time to time also involves inconvenience, embarrassment and disgrace.

3. It is not correct to say that since the offender lives in the community, he continues to be a threat to it and the society remains unprotected.

Here it is overlooked that only selected offenders are released on probation and in a good number of cases, there is investigation of his background as well as supervision over his conduct during probation, both of which operate to prevent the exposure of the community to further law violations on the part of the offender.

4. Though there is some logic to the argument that on being released on probation, the offender returns to the same environment in which he committed crime yet in a large number of cases, there is supervision by a probation officer over him, who guides and advises him and thus seeks to modify the situation.

If there is no supervision, the answer is to be found in improvement of the probation system and not in its elimination. It may also be pointed out that the imprisoned offender also returns to his family and community after he is discharged from prison and there is no one there to guide or assist him.

5. Social investigation is ordered by the courts wherever it is considered necessary. The numbers of cases dealt with by the courts every year are so large (about 16 lakh in our country) that social investigation in all cases would not be feasible.

6. Supervision is made compulsory in all such cases wherever it is considered essential. If supervision is ordered and the probation officer is not able to supervise all cases under him because of excessive workload, supervision will be only a mockery.

Besides, since the alternative to probation is not permanent imprisonment, but, in all probability, a short term of confinement from which there is often release without supervision, probation even without supervision may actually institute a successful alternative to imprisonment.

The insufficient number of probation officers and/or their heavy workload is deficiencies in the implementation of the programme and not the failure of the probation system itself. In view of the great advantages of probation, the solution is not the abandonment of probation but the elimination of the conditions which make its use difficult.