Reflections on the European Soceity of Criminology Conference 2026 | From Criminological Research to Probation Practice

Time is not a neutral backdrop

Helen Kosc studied the move from prison to the community in England and Wales and found that how people experience time was central. Many felt ‘whiplash’ going from the slow wait of prison to a rush of appointments in the first 24 hours after release. As one participant put it, “you feel like you’re late for your own release.” Victoria Rambaud’s work in Belgium adds that imprisonment can weaken self-control: both stopping what we don’t want to do and starting what we do. For practitioners, recognising reduced capacity for self-control and how much time warps in the first days post release can matter: how we pace early requirements may decide whether someone starts supervision with hope or with a sense of failure.

Rethinking success

Justin Tetrault spoke about Indigenous people leaving prison in Canada. Strong community belonging underpinned high wellbeing despite ‘material disadvantage’, yet barely registered in standard assessments. His findings asked might success lie in community connections, beyond institutional priorities and if so, how might probation strengthen the community ties people already have, rather than pulling them towards compliance with institutional priorities?

In Spain, Meritxell Pérez Ramírez studied Circles of Support and Accountability, where support is deliberately reduced halfway through the programme to encourage independence. Counter-intuitively, she found those with the most contact in the first six months were the least likely to complete the programme, and more likely to return to prison, though not for new offences. Her findings could suggest a need for ongoing support even as probation requirements or programme supports draw to an end. The Grand Avenues pilot in Wales, where support continues after a sentence ends, offers a different example for pracitioners, and its approach fits with Alejandro Rubio Arnal’s suggestion that the real goal of reintegration may be membership, not independence.

The stories behind the numbers

Probation numbers often reflect socio-legal decisions about what counts as harm, not just how much crime there is. In Finland, Aaro Beuker showed that a fall in community sanctions was largely due to a change in how drink driving is sentenced. In Slovakia, Jakub Jan Ferenčák showed that supervision rates only make sense alongside studying legal change. And in wartime Ukraine, Rita Haverkamp and Dmytro Yagunov reported that 80% of the huge rise in people convicted of crimes against national security are on probation, simply because there are too many to imprison.

Our ideas about what counts as harm and what counts as reform have deep roots too. The RaRiE team used exploration of ancient plays and folklore to show why our thinking still focus on individual vice and self-mastery grounded in the logigs of the reformation and (my addition) a less communal orientation to justice that also coincided with the rise of a new form of patriarchy. Our current justice systems are often highlighted as failing women, but arguably the underpinning versions of harm and reform are not serving men or women well. The stories behind the numbers seem to suggest that reducing overcrowding may need not only a change in laws, but a change in logics.

Trust as the thread for practice

The presentation of the SPACE II statistics, by Edoardo Cocco from Marcelo Aebi’s team, showed current trends in the map of probation across Europe, but as Professor Aebi cautioned, numbers only tell part of the story. Putting flesh on the numbers, Jennifer Doekhie found that in the Netherlands, completing an order relates to how officers use their discretion when responding to breaches, supported by clear law, a strong working relationship and access to the right care. The Netherlands also scored highly on Ioan Durnescu’s measures of ‘organisational care’, which go hand in hand with staff wellbeing. Trusting staff seems good for them and for the people they supervise. And Louise Kennefick and Deirdre Healy’s work which traced a ‘probation imaginary’ in Ireland suggests that how you shape probation culture is really important to shared, often unspoken ideas about what probation is for among staff, and this can be more important for practice than official policy.

From research to practice

Across these studies, approaches to time, definitions of success and responses to harm are not fixed: they are choices we can make differently. CEP is looking forward to ESC 2027 in North Macedonia, and hopefully to even more research presentations that showcase academics working with practitioners and people with lived experience, as highlighted in the presentation by the North Macedonain team describing their implementation of probation practice and Stephanie Fanfan’s work using photography with women in France and French Guiana.

by Dr Ruth Armstrong, Research and Policy Officer