Following on from his well-received "The History of Probation: Politics, Power and Cultural Change 1876-2005", written with Roger Statham, Philip Whitehead's latest book takes the discussion of the development of probation forwards and to greater depths. It looks at bureaucratic developments and implications for practitioners, and takes a philosophical journey that leads to the exploration of modernisation and cultural change in the probation service.In fact, the central theme of modernisation gives rise to pertinent discussions centred around targets and risk, the need to understand rather than manage offenders, and the preoccupation with numbers in what is a people-based organisation. Accordingly, the book addresses those significant developments, notably since 1997, that help to explain what probation work has become in the centenary year of 2007.The book contains innovative research based upon interviews with a number of solicitors in which they related their experiences of probation work within a changing culture.Finally, arguments are advanced to clarify the essence of the probation ideal: to be a social work organisation rather than a computerised bureaucracy; to have objectives rather than targets; and the central role of probation to be in the provision of information to the courts. This book will make stimulating reading for those who work within probation, as well as the wider criminal justice system, and the academic community; in fact, anyone who wants a better understanding of this modernised and culturally transformed service.