Probation Education, Why the Hush? A Reply to Stout and Dominey's December 2006 Counterblast

: This article is a response to a ‘Counterblast’ concerning the delivery of probation training (Stout and Dominey 2006). The authors mounted a ‘defence of distance learning’, as a method for training probation officers, and took issue with assertions earlier made by us on the subject of distance learning. Our article is intended to clarify our position on distance learning (which previously amounted to no more than a few words) and to clarify the basis of some of our reservations. In doing this, we make more general, critical observations concerning the state of New Labour's probation training programme and about the current crises in which the service, and its training arrangements have become embroiled.