Book review: A.M. van Kalmthout & I. Durnescu (eds.) (2008) Probation in Europe, The Nijmegen, Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers

Probation in Europe is in essence a compendium of information about what are loosely termed ‘probation services’ in 32 European jurisdictions. Initiated by the CEP and enabled by Dutch funding, the book was conceived as a survey of the development of probation services across Europe, bearing fruit in 32 substantive chapters written by experts from those jurisdictions. The specific and skilful contribution of editors Anton van Kalmthout and Ioan Durnescu (academics from the Netherlands and Romania respectively) is twofold. Firstly, they have carefully structured the survey in such a way that each resulting chapter addresses the same set of issues and themes in the same order, thus greatly enhancing comparative analysis. Secondly, they introduce the volume with a substantive and very informative chapter of their own, ‘a comparative overview’ which seeks to give the reader, in digestible form, something of the flavour of the key developments covered in meticulous detail in the remaining chapters.