A love of TV crime dramas and a desire to help people led Lucy to become a probation officer on the frontline of preventing criminals from reoffending in Norfolk.
As a 23-year-old woman, she is atypical of the picture many people have of a probation officer dealing face-to-face with offenders who have often committed serious offences and have chaotic lifestyles.
But juggling staff shortages and huge workloads, made worse by backlogs created during the pandemic, the probation service is seeking a new generation of recruits.
It has launched a campaign to hire trainee probation officers in Norfolk.
“My friends always find my career quite surprising – especially as I’m a young female - and it can be tough at times,” said Lucy, who grew up locally and has been a probation officer for two years working in Norwich.
Her father was a police officer and she said she was "fascinated by TV crime shows growing up”. She went on to study for a forensic psychology degree.
“There really is no better feeling than when you successfully support someone to get their life back on track," she added.
“The people we support often have complex needs and you have to be quite resilient, but sometimes a small change in their mentality and attitude is all you need to turn their behaviour around."
The recruitment drive comes as the HM Inspectorate of Probation warned the newly unified probation service still faces “significant challenges”.
Probation returned to public control last year reversing 2014 reforms that saw management of low-risk and medium-risk offenders contracted out to private companies.
That had been branded "fundamentally flawed" by the chief inspector who said it resulted in "poor quality supervision" of many offenders.
Ministers have said they want to see more offenders doing community punishments like scrubbing off graffiti, while wearing high-visibility tabards emblazoned with phrases like "community payback".
They also want more electronic GPS tag monitoring as well as sobriety tags that test offenders' sweat to ensure they are not drinking alcohol.
It has added to pressures on the service which currently has 1,590 full-time staff working in this region supervising around 23,000 offenders on any given day.
New trainee probation officers will supervise offenders and offer support through courses aimed at addressing criminal behaviour and advice on issues like training, employment, health and housing.
• More details on becoming a probation officer at traintobeaprobationofficer.com
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