This short article is a comment on the recent proposal of a What Works Centre for probation ( Sanders, Jones and Briggs, 2021). Any new ‘What Works’ initiative needs to be informed by the patchy and uneven history of research on the effectiveness of probation in England and Wales. Problems have included, at various times, failure to keep up with research in other countries; over-dependency on government departments to conduct and fund research; poor planning and/or implementation of experimental projects; excessive managerialism, and failure to engage practitioners in a research culture. Unless they are avoided, these problems will hamper any new initiative.

中文翻译：

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什么可以促进“什么有效”？对桑德斯、琼斯和布里格斯的评论

这篇短文是对 What Works Center for probation（Sanders、Jones 和 Briggs，2021 年）最近提议的评论。任何新的“有效”计划都需要了解英格兰和威尔士关于缓刑有效性研究的不完整和不均衡的历史。问题包括，在不同时期，未能跟上其他国家的研究；过度依赖政府部门进行和资助研究；实验项目的规划和/或执行不力；过度的管理主义，以及未能让从业者参与到研究文化中。除非避免这些问题，否则这些问题将阻碍任何新的举措。