Can probation be rehabilitated?

This article is based on the 24th annual Bill McWilliams memorial lecture which was delivered at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge on 9 June 2022. Coinciding with the first anniversary of the unification of probation services in England and Wales, the lecture considered the recent past, present and potential future of the service through the lens of a central concept in probation work: namely, rehabilitation. Three ways of understanding this concept are considered: rehabilitation as restoration; rehabilitation as a process of building back better; and looking-glass rehabilitation. It is argued that each perspective suggests a different orientation to, and a different set of issues and questions about, probation's future and the work that is needed to help the unified service move on from a traumatic recent past.