The article addresses key changes in Finnish probation work's rationalities, mentalities and technologies from the 1960s to the present, examining them within a wider governance theory framework. The article asks how the following aspects of probation work have changed: (1) the conditions of probation work, (2) its institutional selfunderstanding, (3) its work methods and (4) its objectives. The thesis is that these changes have been connected to several synchronous and multi-layered developments, such as globalization, a re-orientation of Finnish social policy and the introduction of new methods and tools within probation work.