Presentence Investigation

The aim of the presentence investigation is to provide a timely, accurate, objective, and comprehensive report to the court. The report should have enough information to assist the court in making a fair sentencing decision and to assist corrections and community corrections officials, in managing offenders under their supervision. Intake procedures may also involve a dispute-settlement process during which the probation officer works with the defendant and the victim to resolve the complaint before sentencing. Intake duties tend to be more common for juvenile offenders than they are for adults, but all officers may eventually have to recommend to the judge the best sentencing alternative for a particular case. The needs assessment, is another area of which is the officers’ responsibility, it extends beyond the psychological needs of the client to a list of the services necessary for a successful experience on probation or parole.

As for diagnosis, the psychological inventorying of the probation or parole client, may be done either formally with written tests which is done by certified psychologists or through informal arrangements, which typically depends on the observational skills of the officer. And finally supervision of sentenced probationers or released parolees is the most active stage of the probation/parole process, which involves months and even sometimes years of periodic meetings between the officer and the client and also an ongoing assessment of the success of the probation/parole achievement in each case. The above four function of probation/parole can be applied to the Coatesville Fires Case. A presentence investigation can be applied by going over all the evidence and reporting that was done, by doing this you will be able to decide what is the best sentencing for the individuals that was involved.

The intake procedure can applied in this case by sitting down with the individuals who are involved in this crime and the victims to try to come to some kind of conclusion of what can be done to resolve this matter, this can be either going to jail for a period of time, or be on probation/parole for a period of time also, which at the same time the individuals can do some kind of community work that can be to help clean up the mess from which was caused by the fires or other related community work that would be affective. The needs for both the assessment and the diagnosis in this case is to see what cause the individuals to commit such a crime, as in what they were thinking when they were doing it.