What do former Presidents of CEP do when they retire? In the middle of a pandemic? Mr. John Scott accepted an appointment as an Honorary Associate Professor at an eminent University in the criminal justice field and launched a new network for academics and practitioners.
The International Network for Criminal Justice (IN-CJ) is based at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. It has an outstanding reputation for probation training and research. DMU is a centre for police and prisons studies, as well as law and human rights.
DMU wants to connect criminal justice practitioners and academics across sectors and countries. To this end, the network together with a few external experts is running a series of seminars in 2021. They use several online platforms for IN-CJ to support conversations, like webinars, podcasts, interviews, articles and next – the NEWSDESK.
On 27th April at 14.00h CET , a seminar entitled “Cyber Supervision: before, during and after the Pandemic” takes place, co-chaired by Professor Ioan Durnescu from the University of Bucharest (Romania) and Mrs. Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer for England and Wales. More information including the possibility to register can be found here.
During the seminar of 12th May (starting at 8 a.m. CET), a total number of 11 countries will be visited. Starting in Australia, then heading off to Malaysia, Nigeria, Romania, Finland, Holland, England, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, and ending in America. Each country will produce its own content – the focus is on practitioners and service users telling their own stories and the theme is ‘making a difference’. Some of the content will be pre-recorded, some live. For each country there will be online material like podcasts and YouTube videos. The event will be live on twitter and the team hopes that in this way it will be a modern version of a ‘What works’ conference!
Some of the stories will be sad, others painful, others inspirational. But they will all be sincere and from the frontline of criminal justice around the world in the middle of this dreadful pandemic.
Join in at: www.criminaljusticenetwork.net
Or on Twitter -@intcjnetwork
More details about this event can be found here.
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.
Interventions Alliance has published a new evaluation of a Hub coordinated on behalf of police forces in the south of England, focused on tackling violence against women and children through a whole family approach. The Hub supports victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse and works across policing, health and social services.
New updates from the European Commission highlight key priorities for judicial training in Europe, alongside new tools supporting transparency and access to data.
Today, 25 November, marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls. It is a global reminder, recognised by UNESCO and the wider international community, of the urgent need to prevent violence, support those affected by it, and strengthen collective action. The day also opens the 16 Days of Activism, a worldwide campaign that calls for sustained engagement to end all forms of violence against women and girls.
From 18-20 November 2025, 15th Plenary Meeting of the Council for Penological Co-operation took part in Council of Europe, Strasbourg. CEP was represented by President Annie Devos, Vice-Presidents Danijela Mrhar Prelic (PC-CP member) and Daniel Danglades and Secretary General Jana Spero Kamenjarin.
The CEP Expert Group on Mental Health met on 19 November 2025 to continue its work on developing a European mental health training curriculum for probation officers. Since last year, the group has been working intensively and meticulously to produce a solid first version of the curriculum.
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.
