In 1976 the Leicestershire Probation Service established a two-tier system for its work in the assessment and supervision of offenders. The first tier, the Court Intake and Assessment Team, prepared Social Enquiry Reports on offenders not known or not currently being supervised by the agency. If the court made a supervision order the case was transferred to the Treatment Teams, the second tier, who carried out the supervision. Previous research had only examined the work of the intake team in isolation. The aim of this thesis was to examine the intake team in the context of the treatment teams, the offenders and the expectations placed upon it by the agency. The main purpose of the thesis was to trace and evaluate the offender's career with the Probation Service from his original contact with an Intake Officer for the preparation of the report to the supervision he received by the Treatment Team officer. Within that main aim are several important areas. These were whether, by setting up a specialist report-writing team, the courts received reports of higher quality than hitherto and whether the intake team was gearing its recommendations to include or exclude particular types of offenders. The concept of targeting became an important issue within the thesis. The thesis shows how a needs/risk scale used at the report-preparation stage could assist officers in targeting offenders for supervision. The examination of the use of labelling within reports and case records, the transfer process that existed and the amount of supervision offered showed up serious flaws in the intake system. Furthermore, the thesis showed that the intake system created tensions for the officers working within it, especially the Treatment Team ones. The conclusion of the thesis is that the intake system as researched should either be disbanded or seriously modified.