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How can evidence-based skills and practices reduce re-offending, support desistance, and encourage service user engagement during supervision in criminal justice settings? How can those who work with service users in these settings apply these skills and practices?
This book is the first to bring together international research on skills and practices in probation and youth justice, while exploring the wider contexts that affect their implementation in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Wide-ranging in scope, it also covers effective approaches to working with diverse groups such as ethnic minority service users, women and young people.
Over the past 20 years, there have been many changes to probation governance in England and Wales aimed at controlling it from central government. However, the changes introduced under the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) agenda, introduced in 2013, are unprecedented: the service has been divided and part-privatised and no longer exists as a unified public body.
This topical book looks at the attitudes of probation practitioners and managers to the philosophy, values, and practicalities of TR. Based on a unique online survey of over 1300 respondents which found that they were unequivocally opposed to its broad aims and objectives, it provides unique insights into the values, attitudes and beliefs of probation staff and their delivery of services.
Including broader discussion of the privatisation/marketisation debate, the context of privatisation of criminal justice services and questions of legitimacy and governance, this is essential reading for everyone interested in the future of the service.
A quarter of century has passed since Margaret Thatcher launched one of her most controversial reforms, privately- run prisons, and the role of the private sector in delivering public services continues to be one of the big political issues of our time. This book, by a critical professional insider, re-assesses the benefits and failures of competition, how public and private prisons compare, the impact of competition on the public sector’s performance, and how well Government has managed this peculiar ‘quasi-market’.
Drawing on first person interviews with key players, including Chief Executives and prison managers in both sectors and Chief Inspectors, Julian Le Vay uses his former role as Finance Director of the Prison Service to give a wholly new analysis of comparative costs and of the impact of constant changes in competition policy. He draws out lessons from the parallel stories of the SERCO/G4S billing scandal, privately run immigration detention and the more radical approach now being taken on outsourcing probation, and looks in detail at four prisons, publicly and privately run, that ‘failed’. Concluding with a critique of the future shape of competition, he also draws some general conclusions on the way government works. This is vital reading for anyone interested in the role of competition in public services, implementation of public policy, or the state of our prisons.
In this enlightening study, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to penal and welfare systems.
From Margaret Thatcher’s first cabinet, to austerity politics via New Labour, the book reveals the ideological shifts that have led successive governments to reinforce their penal powers. It shows how ‘tough on crime’ messages have spread to other areas of social policy, fostering the neoliberal political economy, encouraging hostile approaches to the social state and creating stigma for those living in poverty.
This is an important addition to the debate around the complex and interconnected issues of welfare and punishment.
Radio produced and broadcast behind prison walls is redefining traditional meanings of ‘public service broadcasting’ and disrupting traditional power structures within the prison system.
Focusing on one of the most interesting developments in UK prisons over the past 10 years, this book examines the early history of the Prison Radio Association and the formation of the first national radio station for prisoners.
Highlighting the enduring importance of social values in broadcasting this book shows how radio can be used as a powerful force for social change. It will be of interest to those involved in media, criminal justice and social activism.
Why is solitary confinement used in today’s world? Does it help the rehabilitation of offenders? And how is policy affected by justification for the use of it?
This book is the first to consider the history of solitary confinement and how it is experienced by the individuals undergoing it. Using Merleau-Ponty’s concept of embodied subjectivity, it provides first-hand accounts of the inhumane experience of solitary confinement to provide a better appreciation of the relationship between penal strategy and its effect on human beings. Drawing on his own experiences as a Psychological Specialist in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and on those interviewed as part of the Guardian 6x9 project (http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/apr/27/6x9-a-virtual-experience-of-solitary-confinement), the author focuses on the phenomenology of solitary confinement to consider what the intentional aspect of this almost uninhabitable type of confinement says about a democratic society that continues to justify its use as a correctional strategy.
Aiming to influence policy, the book fills the gap between the practice of solitary confinement and its implications, as well as the social attitudes that uncritically condone its use.
Key Issues in Corrections critically analyzes the most important challenges affecting the correctional system in the USA, offering a no-nonsense explanation of the problems of correctional officers, correctional managers, prisoners, and the public.
“Tackling prison overcrowding” is a response to controversial proposals for prisons and sentencing set out in by Lord Patrick Carter’s “Review of Prisons”, published in 2007.
The Carter review proposed the construction of vast ‘Titan’ prisons to deal with the immediate problem of prison overcrowding, the establishment of a Sentencing Commission as a mechanism for keeping judicial demand for prison places in line with supply, along with further use of the private sector, including private sector management methods.
“Tackling prison overcrowding” comprises nine chapters by leading academic experts, who expose these proposals to critical scrutiny. They take the Carter Report to task for construing the problems too narrowly, in terms of efficiency and economy, and for failing to understand the wider issues of justice that need addressing. They argue that the crisis of prison overcrowding is first and foremost a political problem - arising from penal populism - for which political solutions need to be found.
This accessible report will be of interest to policy makers, probation practitioners, academics and other commentators on criminal policy.
Drawing on original research from the Women, Family, Crime and Justice research network, this edited collection sheds new light on the challenges and experiences of women and families who encounter the criminal justice system in the UK.
Each contribution demonstrates how these groups are often ignored, oppressed and repeatedly victimised. The book addresses crucial issues including short-term imprisonment, trauma-specific interventions, schools supporting children affected by parental imprisonment and visibility and voice in research.
Bringing together contemporary knowledge from both research and practice, this ambitious volume offers valuable insights and practical recommendations for positive action and change.
Although prison suicide is a global problem, there is little knowledge about the investigations occurring after prison suicides. Addressing this gap, this book provides the first detailed case study of the investigations that follow prison suicides: using England and Wales.
Despite the large range of institutions that monitor English and Welsh prisons, suicides reached a record high in 2016, with the rate having doubled since 2012. These deaths represent the sharp end of a continuum of suffering, self-harm, despair and distress within prisons, which affects prisoners, their families and prison staff.
This book details and critiques the lengthy and expensive police, ombudsman and coroner investigations that follow prison suicides. Drawing on extensive document analysis, including analysis of over 100 Prison and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations, and original semi-structured interviews with stakeholders undertaken between 2016-2017, this book provides a novel analysis of prison oversight.
