0
0
The Ukrainian probation service emerged from reformist rhetoric and developed in the shadow of bureaucratic self-perpetuation. The 2015 Law ‘On Probation’ was presented as a symbolic break with the Soviet criminal enforcement inspectorate — that notorious institution of total control, where rehabilitation was not the goal but a decorative function masking punitive supervision. But a decade into the development of this ‘new’ institution, a disturbing picture emerges: the structure has changed, the name has changed, but the logic has not. Probation in Ukraine, unfortunately, remains a phenomenon where form invariably triumphs over substance.
The root cause of this pathology lies in the very mechanism of transformation. The Criminal Enforcement Inspectorate was not reformed — it was merely renamed. Inspectors became ‘probation officers’, receiving new ID cards without any substantial retraining. The risk assessment methodology, borrowed from international practices, was implemented piecemeal — without standardised protocols, without an established culture of application, and without a systematic understanding of why this assessment is needed at all. The average caseload per officer in some regions reached 150–200 clients.
The hybrid nature of the body immediately precluded any genuine independence. Remaining within the Ministry of Justice system — that is, in close institutional proximity to the prison system — the probation service inherited its operational logic. Supervision, rather than reintegration, became the real core of its activities.
Most telling is the fate of the pre-trial report — a tool which, in developed probation systems, serves as a genuine bridge between the supervisory body and the court, a factor influencing the nature of the sentence. In Ukraine, the courts have systematically ignored and continue to ignore the recommendations of probation officers. The lack of any obligation to take the report into account has reduced this document to a mere formality with no practical consequences. The quality of the reports themselves varied drastically from region to region — depending on the qualifications of the individual officer, the availability of methodological support, and whether they had read anything about probation beyond their job description.
Prison probation — working with prisoners within correctional facilities and preparing them for release — remained the weakest link in the system. Probation officers effectively had no real access to the facilities, or their access was so limited that there was no question of meaningful work. Reintegration programmes existed mainly on paper: in reports they were listed as implemented, but in reality what happened was what always happens when a bureaucratic system evaluates itself — figures were recorded, but the substance remained hollow.
Here we come to a key pathology that pervades the entire Ukrainian probation system — one without an understanding of which any criticism will remain superficial. This concerns the system for measuring effectiveness: a strikingly elaborate apparatus of self-deception, where the state spends money, society receives extremely superficial and limited statistics, and reality remains hidden from view. At the heart of this system lies the recidivism rate — but not the recidivism as measured across the entire civilised world, but rather a specific ‘probation’ recidivism: the percentage of individuals who committed a crime whilst under the supervision of the probation service. And this rate consistently hovers at 1–2 per cent, which, according to the system itself, is evidence of its staggering effectiveness.
But this figure is a methodological falsification — not in a criminal-law sense, but in the sense of intellectual honesty. The logic is elementary. While a person is under probation supervision, a real ‘Sword of Damocles’ hangs over them: a breach of the conditions of supervision means actual imprisonment. Under such conditions, refraining from crime is not the result of rehabilitation, but of sheer fear of punishment. As soon as supervision ends — and with it, the mechanism of coercion — the person returns to the environment from which they came, with the same social connections, the same lack of work, and the same lack of skills, if the probation system has failed to do anything about this during the period of supervision. This is precisely why, worldwide, recidivism is measured over a period of 3–5 years following the end of probation supervision, and this rate varies across countries from 20 to 70 per cent — depending on the quality of rehabilitation work, the development of social infrastructure, and the extent to which the system takes its reintegration function seriously.
When the system deliberately avoids applying this standard — and the Ukrainian probation service avoids it purposefully — this is no longer a methodological error. It is a rational choice by an institution that finds attractive statistics more beneficial than the true picture. The system has no interest in auditing itself, as this would inevitably reveal that, over the years of its existence, it has failed to fulfil any of the fundamental tasks for which it was created. Instead, there are glossy photos of ‘educational activities’, the involvement of convicts in ‘Vyshyvanka Day’ and ‘Shevchenko Readings’, and cheerful reports on the number of meetings held. This is not probation — it is a sham, organised with all the hallmarks of post-Soviet bureaucracy, which is adept at producing reports but incapable of producing results.
The financial deterioration of the system only deepens this vicious circle. Probation officers’ salaries remained at a level incommensurate with the qualifications expected of them. High staff turnover has eroded the already weak institutional memory and damaged personal relationships with those under supervision — relationships which are the only real tool of probationary influence. The material and technical infrastructure failed to meet any minimum standard. At the same time, the penological culture of judges, prosecutors and public opinion remained deeply punitive: alternatives to imprisonment were perceived as ‘impunity’, and the probation service itself did not carry out any systematic work to legitimise its own mission in the public consciousness.
The full-scale invasion of 2022 laid bare the system’s fragility. Units in occupied and frontline territories were either evacuated or forced to cease operations; clients who found themselves under occupation were removed from supervision not through a court order, but as a result of geopolitical catastrophe. Some staff were mobilised, exacerbating an already critical staff shortage. An absurd and telling phenomenon emerged: individuals given suspended sentences found themselves in a legal ‘grey area’ regarding the right or obligation to perform military service. A system that for years had neglected in-depth social work with people was suddenly forced to address questions about their status under martial law.
But there is another dimension to this crisis — one that looks to the future. Mass demobilisation following the end of the active phase of the war will present probation with a challenge for which it is not systematically prepared. Thousands of former combatants with traumatic experiences, PTSD, addictions and skills unsuitable for peaceful civilian life will require probation support — not merely formal, but genuine, in-depth support, including social support, psychological assistance and help with employment. A system that has not learnt this in ten years of peace will not learn it in a single year following demobilisation. If reform does not take place before then — rather than after, when it will be too late — society will pay for this failure at a cost that cannot be expressed in recidivism rates.
Ukraine’s potential accession to the EU requires bringing the probation system into line with the Council of Europe standards set out in Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)1 — standards that demand the legislative enshrinement of reintegration as the primary objective, the development of restorative justice, and the genuine independence of the probation service from the prison system. These requirements are not the bureaucratic whims of Brussels. They reflect what Ukraine has still failed to do: to place the individual, rather than paperwork, at the heart of the criminal justice system. The question should not be ‘how many people committed a crime whilst under supervision’ — but ‘how many people have we returned to society with a lower propensity to reoffend and greater resources for a dignified life’.
The answer to this question requires honesty — something the Ukrainian probation service has yet to demonstrate. As long as the system evaluates itself, sets its own targets, conceals the real statistics and produces optimistic reports for the ministry, it will remain what it is: an unfinished transition, stuck between a punitive inspection and a rehabilitation service — and in no hurry to reach its destination, because it is more comfortable in its current state. This is not reform — it is a bureaucratic imitation of reform, designed for those who look at the form and do not ask about the substance.
