© British Association of Social Workers
A ‘Missed Opportunity’ Re-assessed: the Influence of the Day Training Centre Experiment on the Criminal Justice System and Probation Policy and Practice
Maurice Vanstone holds a split post as research manager in Mid Glamorgan Probation Service and lecturer in the Social Policy and Applied Social Studies department at Swansea University. For nine years from 1975 he worked in the Pontypridd day training centre. He is the author of numerous articles on day centres, management and staff development.
Correspondence to Maurice Vanstone, Department of Social Policy and Applied Social Studies, University of Wales College of Swansea, Swansea SA2 8PP.
Summary
In 1973 four probation day training centres were set up in Liverpool, London, Sheffield and Pontypridd as part of an experimental project which focused on providing a community based training programme for offenders who would otherwise have been imprisoned. The experiment, which lasted from 1973 to 1981, has never been properly evaluated. This paper, whilst not purporting to fill that gap, is an attempt to critically review its significance within the context of the criminal justice system from both a policy and practice perspective. It further reflects on the reasons for the formulation of the training centre model as a community 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 unintended consequence of drawing inappropriate people into a burgeoning network of state control. Throughout the paper a distinction is drawn between the day training centres and the numerous day centres that were established in the probation service during the late 1970s and the 1980s.