Developing social capital in probation practice by drawing on non-criminal justice community spaces and places: A tool for strategy and practice

There has been a lot of discussion about incorporating social capital-building opportunities for people on probation. We seek to inform practice on embedding these pathways into probation services. Following a discussion of social capital and its relevance for probation work, we present a one-page social capital-building tool that can be used to identify, assess evidence, plan and commission these resources. The tool has been developed, refined and aligned with the theoretical social capital and desistance literature. In this way, we hope that probation services and practitioners can further their own knowledge and practice around what social capital-building opportunities look like in practice.