This chapter focuses on the professional practices and skills employed by probation officers (PO) during first interviews with individuals serving probation orders. Its focus is comparative and it draws on the results of research conducted by the authors in two different jurisdictions, Belgium and Spain (Catalonia). The study employed an observation schedule to observe first interviews. The schedule was collaboratively developed by researchers from various European jurisdictions in the context of the COST Action Offender Supervision in Europe (Boxstaens et al., 2015). This chapter includes some methodological reflections on the strengths and limitations of using structured observation as a method for collecting comparable data and focuses on the actual results of employing the observation schedule and interviewing POs in the two jurisdictions. Data will be analysed comparatively to assess the skills the practitioners employed, and attention will also be paid to variations within jurisdictions and between individual practitioners. Results and implications are discussed in terms of the different cultural, legal, and institutional aims and settings existing in the two jurisdictions involved, and interpreted in terms of POs' dual role (support and control), and the working alliance between the professional and the sentenced individual.

Empirical research on practicing offender supervision seems to be rather scarce in many European jurisdictions. Existing studies tend to be mostly descriptive and use interviews and surveys as methods of data collection. Moreover, comparative research on the practice of offender supervision is almost non-existent (Bauwens, 2011; Robinson and Svensson, 2013). This article describes and reflects on the exploratory work that has been done by researchers from different European jurisdictions in their effort to pilot observations as an innovative research method to study probation practice within a comparative framework. The authors briefly discuss observations as a method for collecting data in general. A description of the (ongoing) project of piloting observations as a method in comparative research and the methodological issues that arose, led to the development of a structured observation schedule that has been tested in Catalonia, Spain. We describe the first results of this study and discuss them in relation to our ongoing effort to assess the added value of observations in comparative research on probation practice.

This article describes the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Working Alliance for Mandated Clients Inventory (WAMC-I). First, we explain how, in contrast to other European jurisdictions such as England and Wales, community supervision in Belgium remains a specific form of social work practice, which is referred to as “social work under judicial mandate” (Devos, 2009: 18). Just as in general social work practice, the professional relationship between practitioners and clients1 is considered to be of paramount importance in community supervision practice. To capture the essence of this professional relationship, we draw on the pan-theoretical concept of the Working Alliance (WA) (Bordin, 1979) and a theoretical adaptation of this concept for the field of community supervision (Menger, 2018). Building on this theoretical adaptation, an instrument to measure the WA was developed for the Dutch context of community supervision: the WAMC-I. The objective of the present study is to assess the psychometric properties and factor structure of the WAMC-I with a sample of justice assistants2 and clients in the Flemish Houses of Justice. This study offers an elaborated conceptualization and operationalization of the concept of the WA. Preliminary tests on the psychometric properties and factor structure of the WAMC-I show that three factors on the WAMC-I for professionals proved valid and reliable: trust, clarity of rules and regulations and reactance. However, tests on the WAMC-I for clients showed no factor solution. Based on the theoretical framework of the WA and scientific-methodological arguments we express our reservations about the use of the WAMC-I and offer suggestions for improvement.

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