Home visits and conditional sentence in the age of risk management
Since 2007, conditional sentences, a hybrid sentence that combines reinsertion and punishment, have been managed by community-based organizations that are normally associated with providing aid or personal support. This article tries to understand how community-based supervisors manage the tension created by the conjunction of their traditional missions of help and support with the punishment aspect of a sentence originating in risk prevention practices. Based on interviews with 32 community workers about how they use home visits with offenders in the context of community surveillance, the results show that home visits are used primarily with the aim of strengthening feelings of trust by the offender, which aids in social reintegration. However, the principles of risk management can transform the home visit into a tool for monitoring and control. Despite this, community agents try to maintain a philosophy of intervention based on aid and trust to facilitate social reinsertion of offenders.