BETWEEN PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION: HOW PROBATION OFFICERS BUILD THEIR PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY

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This book examines the emergence of probation as a profession in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, comparing their non-custodial justice systems through qualitative research and survey data. It explores counsellor-beneficiary relationships, public attitudes toward punishment, restorative justice, and institutional cooperation, documenting a paradigm shift from prison-centred punishment toward community-based reintegration and human dignity.

Descriere

Descriere

BETWEEN PUNISHMENT AND REHABILITATION: HOW PROBATION OFFICERS BUILD THEIR PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY – A Comparative Study of Restorative Justice,
Community Supervision, and Penal Culture in Post-Communist Europe

Author: Antonio SANDU

Copyright © LUMEN 2026 – Colecția: DEZVOLTARE SOCIALĂ FORMAT: Tipărit PAGINI: 312 LIMBA: Engleză
ISBN: 978-973-166-662-4

Book description:

How does a new profession come into being? What happens when justice moves beyond prison walls and into the community? This book offers a compelling, research-based answer, taking the reader inside the world of probation counsellors — the professionals who supervise, guide, and support people serving non-custodial sentences.

Combining rigorous qualitative research with revealing quantitative survey data, the volume provides the first in-depth comparative analysis of the probation systems of Romania and the Republic of Moldova, two neighbouring countries that built their probation services from the ground up after the fall of communism. Drawing on interviews with probation counsellors, magistrates, and beneficiaries, as well as on public opinion surveys concerning custodial and non-custodial sanctions, the book explores:

The birth of a profession — how the role of the probation counsellor was socially constructed at the intersection of social work, law, and psychology; Justice paradigms in transition — retributive, utilitarian, human rights-oriented, and restorative approaches to punishment, and how they shape everyday probation practice; The counsellor–beneficiary relationship — supervision, counselling, and the therapeutic alliance that makes desistance from crime possible;
Public attitudes toward punishment — original comparative survey findings on how Romanians and Moldovans perceive prison, suspended sentences, community service, and the utility of alternative sanctions;
Inter-institutional cooperation — the complex relationships between probation services, courts, prosecutors, penitentiaries, police, and the community;
Ethical dilemmas and professional identity — the values, tensions, and practical wisdom that define frontline probation work. Written at the crossroads of sociology, criminology, social work, and socio-legal studies, this book speaks to a wide audience: researchers and university students in the social sciences and law; probation officers, social workers, and criminal justice practitioners; policy makers involved in penal reform; and any reader interested in restorative justice, offender rehabilitation, criminal justice reform in Eastern Europe, and the human side of punishment.

More than an academic study, this is a book about second chances — about how societies choose to punish, and how they can choose, instead, to reintegrate. It documents a paradigm shift away from a prison-centric penal culture toward a justice rooted in community, responsibility, and human dignity.

Part of the Social Development collection, the volume stands as an essential reference for understanding alternative sanctions and community justice in post-communist Europe, offering original empirical data available in English for the first time.

Author bio:

Antonio SANDU is a full professor at “Ştefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Romania, senior researcher at the LUMEN Center for Socio-Human Research, Iaşi, Romania, professor and doctoral coordinator at the University of Oradea, and also director of LUMEN Publishing House, Iaşi, Romania. His main areas of interest include ethics, bioethics, sociology, social work,
and social philosophy, public administration. The original contributions
of the author’s scientific activities stem from the social construction of
reality viewed from a semiological perspective. He analyzes the social
construction of reality by developing his own version of this paradigm
that operates at the intersection between it and communicative action
theory. He has studied the interpretative drift of ethical concepts such as
ethical acceptability and ethical values. He has conducted research in
autonomy and informed consent in the field of medical ethics and public
health ethics. He is also interested in the modifications undergone by the
human condition under the influence of the virtualization of social space
and humanity’s transition toward a trans- and posthuman stage.
He is the author of the volume Bioethics in Crisis or the Crisis of Bioethics? An Anthropology of the Pandemic in the Medicalized Society, published by Lumen Publishing House. He has also published the volume Social Construction of Reality as Communicative Action, published by Cambridge Scholar Publishing (2016), as well as the volumes Social Work Practice: Research Techniques and Intervention Models, Appreciative Ethics: A Constructionist Version of Ethics, and Social-Constructionist Epistemology: A Transmodern Overview. The last three books were published by Lap Lambert Publishing between 2012- 2013. He is coordinator of the books Ethical Issues in Social Work Practice and Ethics in Research Practice and Innovation published by IGI Global during 2018-2019. He has published over 150 works in scientific journals, of which 60 are indexed in WoS, the author holding an H-index of 13 in WoS and an H-index of 25 in Google Scholar respectively. He is also the author of over 20 volumes in Romanian and English.