Probation officers in Turkey: the relevance of attitudes toward offenders

Probation services have been introduced as a community-based alternative to incarceration for the rehabilitation of offenders. It is still a relatively new service in Turkey’s criminal justice system. Juvenile and adult probation officers play an important role in the effectiveness of probation services. They are expected to balance competing public safety, punishment, and rehabilitation goals while managing large caseloads. This PhD thesis provides insight into Turkish probation officers’ occupational needs and focuses on understanding the link between their attitudes toward offenders and their estimates of offender recidivism risk and job burnout. Our results show that probation officers with more punitive attitudes towards offenders experience more job burnout and make higher risk estimates. Our findings also support the positive effect of a brief rehabilitation-focused training on reducing probation officers’ punitive attitudes.