SUMMARY

Developments in the Probation Service in the 1980s have been dominated by the rhetoric of 'Alternatives to Custody'. At the same time, there has been an increasing awareness of gender biases within the criminal justice system. This article reports on research into the attitudes of probation officers and female offenders and explores the implications of these for future work with women by the Service. According to official criminal statistics (Home Office, annually) women are responsible for about fifteen per cent of all recorded crime. In relation to sentencing, they appear to be over-represented on probation orders (about twenty-six per cent of all orders made), under-represented on Community Service orders (about six per cent of all orders made) (Home Office, 1987) and placed on both with fewer previous convictions than men (Home Office, 1986). Each of these facts might be interpreted in a number of ways and each explanation has its own implications for defining the 'moment ' and nature of probation intervention in the lives of female offenders. During the 1980s, the Probation Service has been emerging from what has been termed its 'loss of direction ' (Raynor, 1985) in the mid and late 1970s. The banner under which it has recreated its identity and restored its self-confidence has been that of 'Alternatives to Custody'. During the same period, there has been a steadily increasing interest amongst both academics and practitioners in a previously neglected aspect of the criminal justice system—the treatment of female offenders. The separat