CEP has released the first cross-European study examining stress, burnout, and morale among probation staff. The report was produced by Professor Charlie Brooker, Professor Karen Tocque, Professor Ioan Durnescu and Liliana Lupsica, whose combined expertise in public health, criminology, and organisational analysis provides an important contribution to our understanding of well-being in probation work.
The authors undertook this research to address a clear gap in European knowledge. While burnout in probation has been widely discussed, there has been little comparative evidence on how different systems organise prevention, support their staff, and monitor well-being. The study responds directly to this need and aligns with the growing attention across Europe to the mental health of criminal justice professionals.
Using the Maslach Burnout Inventory and an organisational survey completed by directors in twenty two jurisdictions, the report brings together individual experiences of stress with a detailed look at how organisations structure prevention and support. The findings show moderate levels of burnout across the sample, with only one third of staff classified as engaged. Crucially, the data demonstrates that staff morale is strongly associated with organisational design rather than individual factors alone.
The report identifies three clusters of organisational practice: advanced systems with well-established prevention and recovery structures, emerging systems with partial provision, and minimal systems where support remains informal. Countries with more formalised policies, routine training, confidential support, and structured reintegration were also those with higher staff engagement and fewer burnout cases.
This study offers an important message for all probation services. Staff well-being improves when it is embedded in governance, monitored regularly, and supported through clear structures rather than left to individual resilience. The report encourages jurisdictions to strengthen workload policies, enhance communication, expand access to mental health support, and build a routine infrastructure for listening to staff needs.
CEP invites members to read both the summary and the full report, which provide a comprehensive foundation for strengthening staff well-being across Europe.
The European survey of probation staff’s stress and morale
Keep up to date with the latest developments, stories, and updates on probation from across Europe and beyond. Find relevant news and insights shaping the field today.
This week, during Mental Health Awareness Week, the Confederation of European Probation is highlighting the importance of mental health in probation practice across Europe.
Looking for reliable criminological literature? KrimDok is a free online database developed by the University of Tübingen and supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The database contains nearly 400,000 references to books, journal articles, reports, and other publications covering criminology and related fields such as criminal justice, psychology, sociology, education, and law. It draws on a specialist criminology library established in 1969, with a collection of around 150,000 titles, and includes indexed articles from more than 200 academic journals.
The latest edition of the EU Knowledge Hub newsletter brings together policy, research, and practice to address evolving radicalisation threats across Europe.
The European Network for the Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence (WWP EN), in collaboration with Blanquerna – Universitat Ramon Llull (Barcelona), has launched a pioneering new programme:
Lifelong Learning Master’s Degree in Intervention Strategies with Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence: Social, Clinical, and Legal Perspectives
This initiative represents the first international lifelong learning Master’s programme specifically focused on perpetrator intervention, offering a unique opportunity for professionals working to address and prevent gender-based violence across Europe and beyond.
The Confederation of European Probation (CEP) is pleased to present the Technical Recommendations on Mentoring in the Context of Probation Training, developed through the work of the CEP Expert Network on Education and Training.
This publication is the result of extensive collaborative exchange among 30 experts from 15 European jurisdictions, who convened in March 2025 in Agen, France, at the École Nationale d’Administration Pénitentiaire (ENAP). Bringing together probation directors, middle managers, practitioners, and representatives from training institutions, the network worked collectively to identify shared challenges, exchange practices, and formulate practical recommendations to strengthen mentoring within probation services across Europe.
During the CEP 15th General Assembly and International Conference on Gender-Based Violence in Probation (from 14 to 16 October 2025 in Vienna, Austria), the Dutch research group Modelling Societal Impact received the CEP Probation Research Award for their work on the societal impact of the Dutch probation services. The research has since been completed. There are multiple reports published (in Dutch) and a short videocast with English subtitles. For anyone interested, see below an oversight of the published research and relevant links to the publications and videocast.
This research may help other European countries demonstrate the added value of probation for their national context. If you would like to learn more about this, please contact: a.a.nemeth@saxion.nl (dr.ir. Attila Németh) or a.visser@saxion.nl (Anouk Visser, MSc.)
