Probation Officer Job Description

Probation Officer Job Description
Overview
Would you regard yourself as responsible? Follow orders so much that it has become a natural talent? Respect the court system and think you are capable of upholding their high standards? You may be enticed to know that this job may be the job for you.

Day-to-day activities / duties and responsibilities
• Being very attentive to the offender and hold supervisory duties
• Make sure the offender is obedient to their custodial sentence
• Paying attention to details and interviewing the offenders
• Keep track of the community service work that they are doing, the amount of hours they are working
• Provide support and care to the offender, help them acknowledge how their offences has had an affect on

However these figures depends on numerous factors as they may be subjected to change and are only provided to be guidelines.

Qualifications and entry requirements
• An Degree in Community Justice and the Level 5 Diploma in Probation Practice
• Graduate Diploma in the Community Justice and level 5 Diploma in Probation practice (Degree in criminology, community or criminal justice, police studies)
• You can also study these whilst working
• Working for the Criminal Justice System may be very beneficial as there is a new qualification route developing in 2016 by the National Probation Service.

Skills and personal attributes
1. Communication skills – This is essential because you must be able to use this skill to establish a relationship between you and the offender, as well as be able to communicate to the victims.

2. Prioritize- This is fundamental because you need to be able to finish tasks and recognize what is the most important task to complete before court hearings.

3. Initiative – When faced with a challenging situation with an offender it may be required of you to use your own initiative in order to solve the problem

You will meet a range of different people – this role involves a vast amount of communication and it could be said that this is what makes the role very interesting and can be regarded as rewarding at the same time.

Job challenges and disadvantages

1. You will meet challenging situations: These offenders may not be the friendliest of individuals and you have to be prepared to deal with it in a calm manner.

2. Organising workloads – There will be court hearings and deadlines you need to be able keep up with so everything needs to be kept up to date.

3. You are human – you are not going to change everyone’s perspective, the efforts you try with some people may not work. You may see offenders commit crimes in the future, prepare to deal with it. There is only so much you can do to help these individuals, what they choose to do after their sentence is up to themselves.

Opportunity, career prospects and job progression
Once you are a qualified probation officer, with enough experience there is a potential that you could become a senior probation officer.

Therefore you can specialize in areas such as high risk offenders or sexual