Community Justice organisations work in the following key areas:

• working with offending behaviour
• working with victims, survivors and witnesses of crime
• crime reduction and community safety
• youth justice
• substance misuse

There are approximately 141,400 employees working in community justice, in approximately 2,749 organisations.  In terms of the number of organisations, it is the largest sub-sector in justice, and second largest in terms of employment levels.

Over the next ten years, the community justice sector is expected to expand, particularly as the number of volunteers is decreasing.  There is an increasing demand for specialised professions in some of the larger organisations, such as victim support and women’s aid.

Community justice has a distinct employment structure spanning public sector (17%), private sector (11%) and voluntary (72%). 

50% of the community justice workforce are in associate professional and technical occupations, 16% within administrative/secretarial occupations and 12% are employed within elementary occupations.  The main recruitment difficulties for the justice sector as a whole are for professionals, ‘other support’ staff and administrative/secretarial staff.  Within community justice, there are difficulties in recruiting individuals to professional roles in Youth Justice.

37% of community justice organisations report internal skills gaps; IT and computing skills are most frequently reported.

Agencies and services in community justice:

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the probation service employs an estimated 22,480 staff of which 66% are female.  The majority of staff are employed in occupational roles (i.e. probation officer) (69%).  Women represent 61% of occupational roles and 77% of support roles (i.e. administrative and secretarial roles).  Clear gender divides are also reported in Northern Ireland.  11% of the probation workforce in England and Wales are from a minority ethnic group.

Criminal justice work in Scotland employs approximately 1,450 staff of which 61% are female.  35% of staff are aged 45-54 years.

Source: Community Justice SNA 2006, Skills for Justice Briefing Paper 2006, Community Justice LMI 2005 and UK Skill Needs Assessment 2005

For data on community justice by country, and information on recruitment and retention issues see:

Employees and volunteers in community justice, 2004

Community justice recruitment and retention