A MISSED OPPORTUNITY REASSESSED - THE INFLUENCE OF THE DAY TRAINING-CENTER EXPERIMENT ON THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE SYSTEM AND PROBATION POLICY AND PRACTICE

In 1973 four probation day training centres were set up in Liverpool, London, Sheffield and Pontypridd as part of an experimental project wh ich focused on providing a community based training programme for offe nders who would otherwise have been imprisoned. The experiment, which lasted from 1973 to 1981, has never been properly evaluated. This pape r, whilst not purporting to fill that gap, is an attempt to critically review its significance within the context of the criminal justice sy stem from both a policy and practice perspective. It further reflects on the reasons for the formulation of the training centre model as a c ommunity based semi-institution. It examines its original purposes of diverting offenders from custody and helping them, against the charge that they not only failed to achieve those purposes but had the uninte nded consequence of drawing inappropriate people into a burgeoning net work of state control. Throughout the paper a distinction is drawn bet ween the day training centres and the numerous day centres that were e stablished in the probation service during the late 1970s and the 1980 s.