For many years, there has been a tendency in Poland to organize preventive and rehabilitation activities for offenders as much as possible in an open environment.
This results, among other things, from criticizing the penalty of imprisonment which doesn’t fully implement the goals set for it, disappointing with its results and searching for more effective ways of transforming, modifying or modeling the attitudes and behaviors of socially maladjusted people.
The probation officer is an important instrument of a social control and a social rehabilitation impact on both minors and adults.
He faces new challenges resulting from socio-economic changes, and in the changing social reality, the behavior of defendants also changes. This requires the probation officer to be mindful, flexible, and respond quickly to the rehabilitation needs of supervised.
The aim of the work is to present the types and number of tasks undertaken by probation officers towards minors and adults, indicating trends in rehabilitation work.