Professor reflects on 40-year career in probation

18th April 2016

An acclaimed Sheffield Hallam University professor will bring down the curtain on 40 years working with the probation service with a hard-hitting lecture that examines the future of the embattled service.

Professor Paul Senior, who retires from the University this month after 13 years at the helm of its Hallam Centre for Community Justice, will give a valedictory (retirement) lecture on 28 April. Professor Senior, who began his career as a probation officer in the mid-1970s, will spell out his vision - and fears - for the service after a number of cuts led to it being partly taken over by a range of private operators and community trusts under the Coalition Government. Professor Senior said: "This lecture will explore the future of probation as it adjusts to the new criminal justice landscape of austerity and the consequential loss of direction and purpose for many probation practitioners and managers. "I've always been a trenchant defender of probation as an institution and will continue to argue for the maintenance of probation as a profession. The lecture will challenge our thinking and will be delivered in a characteristic robust and entertaining manner." Professor Senior has been a practitioner, manager, trainer, researcher, writer, academic and consultant after working at South Yorkshire Probation for 17 years. He shaped the University's Diploma in Probation Studies in 1998 and will take on a new role as Chair of the Probation Institute after stepping down from Sheffield Hallam. The lecture takes place in the University's Pennine Lecture Theatre starting at 7pm. Tickets are free and can be reserved in advance through Eventbrite. The Hallam Centre for Community Justice will now be headed up by Kevin Wong. For details of upcoming activities, visit the website.