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Basic research for Council of Europe recommendation on probation starts

Another step has been taken in the process of formulating a recommendation on probation by the Council of Europe (CoE). "There is an agreement on the fundamentals of a draft recommendation", says Ilina Taneva.,Head of the Prison and Probation Unit of the CoE. "I am very pleased that we have made a good start."

At the 26th and 27th of May, the CEP office was the scene of the first meeting between Ilina Taneva, who represented the Council of Europe Secretariat, Rob Canton (De Montfort University of Leicester) and Prof Anton Van Kalmthout (University of Tilburg), experts to the Council for Penological Cooperation, and CEP Secretary General Leo Tigges. "Mr. Canton and Mr. van Kalmthout will examine the legal systems and structures of probation and aftercare services in the different countries in Europe, as well as their tasks before, during and after the criminal proceedings", explains Ilina Taneva. "This will lead to a draft recommendation regarding the role and place of these services in the criminal justice system."

"The CEP will be involved in every step of the process", Ilina Taneva continues. "The CEP has observer status to the Council for Penological Cooperation so the CEP is well informed about the ongoing work. Moreover, the CEP has gathered a profound comparative knowledge regarding probation in the different countries of Europe. That makes the CEP a very useful partner to contribute to the process of drafting the recommendation."

During the meeting, the participants agreed on a structure for the outline of the future draft recommendation, as well as on its definitions and its basic principles. "Agreeing on definitions is very important as this sets the scope and framework our work", comments Ilina Taneva. "I have worked in the criminal justice field for quite some time and I cannot remember that an agreement on definitions of key terms was reached so easily. Maybe that is due to the fact that the persons involved are internationally known experts and agree on the major issues regarding probation." The text thus drafted will be discussed at the PC-CP and further developed at its forthcoming meetings. The aim is to finalise the draft recommendation before the end of September 2009.

The work on the draft recommendation will be one of the topics of the Conference on Probation and Aftercare, that will be organised by the Council of Europe, in co-operation with the CEP and the French Ministry of Justice. The conference will be held on the 27th and 28th November 2008 in Strasbourg. "The conference will be addressed to the Directors General of national probation services, to professionals and international governmental organisations and NGOs working in the field of probation", announces Ilina Taneva. Other topics that will be discussed are the professional standards and ethical safeguards in the use of electronic monitoring and other surveillance techniques, and the possibilities to enhance the role of probation in decreasing the prison population the use of imprisonment.