The article studies social and psychological conditions of juvenile convicts’ resocialization in the probation service. Serving animprisonment sentence leads juvenile offenders to lose their social skills and it is difficult for them to adapt in society, because the personality of a juvenile offender regresses in isolation. Due to the humanization of criminal policy in Ukraine, the judicial system is changing to give preference to alternative punishments, not related to imprisonment. One such re-socializing form for juvenile offenders is probation. This punishment avoids adolescent social isolation during the most important period of personality formation.The main stages of social-psychological work with juveniles sentenced to alternative punishments are: examination of their personality, determination of measures and methods having effective social-psychological influence on them, preparation of individual resocialization programs and adolescents’ integration to societyon the basis of these programs. We determined the content of social workers’ work to re-socialize juvenile offenders.During our empirical study, we analysed documents and organised a survey to examine social workers’ functions in working with juvenile convicts and determine an expert opinion about the need for a social worker position in the probation services where juvenile convicts were registered.The sample consisted of specialists from the probation services of the city of Kyiv and Kyiv region, who worked with juvenile convicts, totally, 28 respondents.The empirical data revealed that, mainly, the specialists in law studied the features of adolescents’ personality traits and upbringing. Probation services did not have social workers in their working structure. And these facts, in turn, makes it impossible to provide high-quality resocialization. In particular, the pre-trial reports, risk assessment for repeated criminal offenses, work with juvenile convicts’ parents, organization of constructive leisure, etc. are performed by specialists without any competencies in social work.However, according to the empirical data, respondents believed that specialists in social work should participate actively in resocialization of juvenile convicts, as they would understand the features of adolescence and, therefore, would be able towork in cooperation to assess qualitatively recidivism, assist and encourage adolescents to study and get an education. Keywords: resocialization, probation, social work, convicted adolescents
