Probation in France: Some things old, some things new, some things borrowed, and often blue

French prison based probation services merged with their community based counterparts in 1999. This reform was aimed at placing the service under the wing of prison services and to reduce the influence of the judiciary. Despite still adhering to their rehabilitative goals and to a one-to-one pre-Martinson type of supervision, French probation services have long abandoned social work. Their exceptionally heavy caseload, a prevailing prison thinking, their newly acquired judicial work and managerialism explain this evolution. French probation services present an odd mix of old traits, insularism, and denial of recent scientific progress, with penal transferring, modern management and frenetic law reforming. All this has generated an identity crisis along with work-related stress.