Negotiating desistance and risk in probation practice: A process-oriented perspective from Austria
Negotiating desistance and risk in probation practice: A process-oriented perspective from Austria

Summary/Abstract: This article explores how probation supervision is organised and experienced within Austria’s probation service, NEUSTART, against the background of shifting probation paradigms. Drawing on qualitative data from three focus groups with probation officers (n = 17) and interviews with people on probation (n = 12), the study examines how probation success is defined and pursued by professionals and how supervision is experienced by probationers. Adopting a process-oriented perspective, the analysis focuses on how organisation objectives are translated into everyday practice rather than outcomes alone. The findings show that Austrian probation supervision is characterised by a hybrid use of desistance-oriented social work and risk-oriented tools, which are continuously co-constructed. It is argued that probation practice is best understood as a relational and adaptive process in which institutional frameworks and individual change processes are continuously negotiated.

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