Motivational Interviewing for Probation Officers: Tipping the Balance Toward Change*

MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING (Miller & Rollnick, 1991) is a way of talking with people about change that was first developed for the field of addictions but has broadened and become a favored approach for use with populations in a variety of settings (Burke, Arkowitz & Dunn, 2002). It has been introduced to criminal justice in general (Birgden, 2004; McMurran, 2002; Farrall, 2002) and probation efforts specifically (Walters, Clark, Gingerich, Meltzer, forthcoming, In Press; Clark, 2005; Ginsburg et.al., 2002; Harper & Hardy, 2000; Miller, 1999). It represents a turn to moving probation departments into the "business of behavior change" (Clark, 2006). This article will suggest several benefits from the importation of Motivational Interviewing into probation practice.