Whilst they retain a recognisable common core, probation systems round the world are enromously varied and many are in a state of rapid change. Probation Round the World is a study of Probation in countries, ranging from the well-resourced and heavily professionalised servies of Britain and the old Commonwealth to the reliance on lay-supervisors in Japan and the community-based system which has recently been set up in Papua New Guinea. PRobation Round the World is the result of collaborative research involving the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), the British Home Office and experts in the ten countries in the study: Australia, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sweden, England and Wales and Scotland. The results paint a picture of probation systems in a state of flux. Faced with rising crime, the more industrialised countries have placed renewed importance on probation as a means not only of reducing reoffending but also of containing burgeoning prison populations. This has led to more overtly correctionalist' systems than before, as probation clienteles include a growing proportion of more serious offenders. Theoretically innovative Probation Round the World reviews the disparate existing literature on comparative probation and by reworking data received from other countries, it offers a coherent analysis of probation around the world.