There has been an evolution of face-to-face work with offenders over the past century, as understandings of practice have altered and become more complex and as the world within which that practice occurs has developed. Philosophical, theoretical and organisational contexts have changed (see Chui and Nellis, 2003) but, throughout all of those changes, the responsibility to work with individual offenders, who are often flawed human beings, leading chaotic lives, has remained a constant.

This chapter primarily focuses on the development of practice with adult offenders, but the authors acknowledge that equally farreaching changes have taken place in how society views and responds to offending by young people (see Burnett and Roberts, 2004; Muncie, 2004; Goldson and Muncie, 2006). There has been a growth of the number and range of professionals and organisations involved in work with offenders both adults and young people. As the delivery of practice has become more diverse, so too have understandings of crime and those who commit it (see Gelsthorpe, 2003). Society itself has become more culturally diverse, with implications for the shape of services. The relative simplicity of the original police court missionary's role has given way to more complex and complicated responses to crime; responses which require policy, coordination and management. See McWilliams (1983, 1985, 1986, 1987) for a detailed overview of key developments in conceptual and political understandings of crime and offenders and the consequent characteristics of probation service interventions (also Robinson and Raynor, 2006).

The new millennium was followed by a plethora of publications which review contemporary practice (see Burnett and Roberts, 2004; Mair, 2004; McNeill et al, 2004), explore competing views of justice (see Worrall and Hoy, 2005; Farrant, 2006; Robinson and Raynor, 2006) or stimulate reflection upon the experience of practitioners in this climate of change with reference to the place of traditional skills (Leach, 2003; Atkinson, 2004; Farrow, 2004).

While there may be a sense of some continuity with the past, there are also, of course, some significant differences of emphasis that have stimulated changes in the way services to offenders and the courts are organised and delivered (see Worrall and Hoy, 2005; Gorman et al, 2006).