Accounting for Pre-Sentencing Recommendations: Typologies and Probation Officers' Theory of Office

Abstract

Many studies of social reactions to deviance have focused on how agents of social control make decisions, but little is known about how these agents produce accounts for their decisions. Research on accounts or rationales for decisions can provide important insights into the typologies of deviant actors used by agents in their daily work activities. We present an analysis of the accounts that probation officers produce as support for their evaluations of defendants during the pre-sentencing process. Using quantitative and qualitative analytic techniques, we identify the typologies that officers employ when assessing a defendent as a “high risk ”for probation. We use the concept “theory of office,” to discuss how such typologies reflect the work perspectives used by agents in particular locations within the criminal justice system.