Developmental and life-course criminology are both concerned with the study of changes in offending and problem behaviors over time. Developmental studies in criminology focus on psychological factors that influence the onset and persistence of criminal behavior, while life-course studies analyze how changes in social arrangements, like marriage, education or social networks, can lead to changes in offending. Though each perspective is clearly concerned with patterns of offending and problem behavior over time, the literature on each is spread across various disciplines, including criminology & criminal justice, psychology, and sociology. The Oxford Handbook on Developmental and Life-Course Criminology offers the first comprehensive survey of these two approaches together. Edited by three noted authorities in the field, the volume provides in-depth critical reviews of the development of offending, developmental and life-course theories, development correlates and risk/protective factors, life transitions and turning points, and effective developmental interventions from the world's leading scholars. In the first two sections, the contributors provide overviews of specific criminal career parameters, including age-crime curve, prevalence/frequency of offending, and co-offending, and review the main theoretical frameworks in the developmental and life-course criminology areas. They further summarize some of the empirical literature on known developmental correlates and risk/protective factors associated with longitudinal patterns of offending in the next section. The fourth section focuses on life transitions and turning points as they may relate to persistence in-or desistance from-criminal activity into adulthood, while the final section examines the genesis of antisocial, delinquent, and criminal activity, its maintenance, and its cessation. A state of the art overview on the topic, this Handbook aims to be the most authoritative resource on all issues germane to developmental and life-course criminologists and provides next steps for further research.

The field of crime and delinquency attracts a great deal of heated and partial opinion, prejudice and other forms of mal-thinking. When there is a scientific approach there tends to be a psychological explanation. This book, first published in 1971, is a corrective to both trends. It is a discussion of criminal behaviour in relation to a wide range of behaviours which could be called deviance and regards the whole field from the sociological point of view. The whole discussion is related to social policy, and is vital reading for students of sociology and criminology.

The Baby Peter and Dano Sonnex incidents were high profile cases in which two key public services, namely child protection and probation, both failed in their tasks of protection of the victims and the public. In this book the author graphically describes media and political reactions and then proceeds to analyze the common problems both social work and probation practice face under conditions of economic recession and drastic reductions in funding. This new paperback version comes with a foreword from Shadd Maruna, Professor of Justice and Human Development and Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Queen's University, Belfast, UK.

Voices From American Prisons: Faith, Education and Healing is a comprehensive and unique contribution to understanding the dynamics and nature of penal confinement. In this book, author Kaia Stern describes the history of punishment and prison education in the United States and proposes that specific religious and racial ideologies - notions of sin, evil and otherness - continue to shape our relationship to crime and punishment through contemporary penal policy. Inspired by people who have lived, worked, and studied in U.S. prisons, Stern invites us to rethink the current punishment crisis in the United States.

Based on in-depth interviews with people who were incarcerated, as well as extensive conversations with students, teachers, corrections staff, and prison administrators, the book introduces the voices of those who have participated in the few remaining post-secondary education programs that exist behind bars. Drawing on individual narrative and various modern day case examples, Stern focuses on dehumanization, resistance, and community transformation. She demonstrates how prison education is essential, can provide healing, and yet is still not enough to interrupt mass incarceration. In short, this book explores the possibility of transformation from a retributive punishment system to a system of justice.

The book s engaging, human accounts and multidisciplinary perspective will appeal to criminologists, sociologists, historians, theologians and scholars of education alike. Voices from American Prisons will also capture general readers who are interested in learning about a timely and often silenced reality of contemporary modern society."

Offender rehabilitation has become increasingly and almost exclusively associated with structured cognitive-behavioural programmes. For fifty years, however, a small number of English prisons have promoted an alternative method of rehabilitation: the democratic therapeutic community (TC). These prisons offer long-term prisoners convicted of serious offences the opportunity to undertake group psychotherapy within an overtly supportive and esteem-enhancing living environment.

Drawing upon original research conducted with residents (prisoners) and staff at three TC prisons, "Offender Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Communities" provides a uniquely evocative and engaging portrayal of the TC regime. Individual chapters focus on residents adaptation to the TC way of rehabilitation and imprisonment; the development of caring relationships between community members; residents contributions towards the safe and efficient running of their community; and the greater assimilation of sexual offenders within TCs for men, made possible in part by a lessening in hypermasculinity .

By analyzing residents own accounts of desistance in process in the TC, this book argues that TCs help offenders to change by enabling positive developments to their personal identity and self-narratives: to the ways in which they see themselves and their life. The radically different penal environment allows its residents to become someone different .

The United States of America is in possession of the largest prison population in the world, with 2.3 million people currently behind bars. This number is predominantly and disproportionately made up of communities of colour and poverty. Between 1987 and 2007, the U.S. prison population tripled; the direct result of various 'tough on crime' public policies. Organizers and scholars use the term prison industrial complex (PIC) to name the structure that encompasses the expanding economic and political contexts of the detention and corrections industry in the USA. The PIC is a network that sutures capital, communities and the State to a permanent punishment economy. The term 'the PIC' aims to capture the range of material and ideological forces that shape the growth of detention: the political and lobbying power of the corrections officers unions, the framing of prisons and jails as a growth industry in the context of deindustrialization, the production and sales of technology and security required to maintain and expand the state of incarceration, and the naturalization of isolation as a logical response to harm. Education and Incarceration highlights the significance of centering agency and autonomy, and documents scholars who work to be accountable to justice movements and communities, not simply to academic disciplines or to research. Additionally, as emerging scholars committed to challenging the PIC, these authors struggle to build multi-layered analytic and material tools for resistance within and beyond the walls of schools, jails and prisons. This book provides snapshots of practices in motion: activist scholars working to engage, to be accountable to families, communities and larger justice movements, and to build abolition democracies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Race Ethnicity and Education.

Little of what we know about prison comes from the mouths of prisoners, and very few academic accounts of prison life manage to convey some of its most profound and important features: its daily pressures and frustrations, the culture of the wings and landings, and the relationships which shape the everyday experience of being imprisoned. The Prisoner aims to redress this by foregrounding prisoners' own accounts of prison life in what is an original and penetrating edited collection. Each of its chapters explores a particular prisoner sub-group or an important aspect of prisoners' lives, and each is divided into two sections: extended extracts from interviews with prisoners, followed by academic commentary and analysis written by a leading scholar or practitioner. This structure allows prisoners' voices to speak for themselves, while situating what they say in a wider discussion of research, policy and practice. The result is a rich and evocative portrayal of the lived reality of imprisonment and a poignant insight into prisoners' lives. The book aims to bring to life key penological issues and to provide an accessible text for anyone interested in prisons, including students, practitioners and a general audience. It seeks to represent and humanize a group which is often silent in discussions of imprisonment, and to shine a light on a world which is generally hidden from view.

--Deviant Behavior offers an engaging and wide-ranging discussion of deviant behavior, beliefs, and conditions. --Encompasses both the explanatory (or positivist) approach and the constructionist (or labeling) perspectives, thereby lending a broad and inclusive vista on deviance. --Explores how society defines what constitutes political deviance; and political deviance and its relation to social change. --Up to date: two chapters new to this edition, along with other timely topical updates throughout the chapters. --Although disease as potential deviance has been covered previously, new coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic greatly expands discussions of this topic. --Written by a renowned scholar of social deviance, the text has been praised as authoritative and accessible.

Can offenders be rehabilitated? Can this be done in ways that benefit the community as a whole, as well as offenders? This book is about the history, theory, practice and effectiveness of rehabilitation. It shows how different beliefs about the value of rehabilitation and about 'what works' have influenced criminal justice policy and practice at different times, and it identifies a number of promising approaches for the future. Everyone interested in the rehabilitation of offenders should read this book.

The high rate of suicide and self-harm in prisons around the world is of major concern to prison administrators, coroners, all those who work in prisons, observers of the justice system as well as prisoners and their families. This book provides a comprehensive overview of attempts to minimize the incidence of self-harming behaviour in custodial settings. Expert contributors from nine different countries offer a global perspective on what is a widespread problem of international concern.

The probation service's venture into financial partnerships with non-statutory agencies during the 1990s was viewed both as a development opportunity for improving sevices and as a threat to professional identity and job security. Judith Rumgay studies partnership development with particular focus on programs for substance misusing offenders. She explores tensions between probation and voluntary organizations, identifies features common to successful partnerships, and compares partnership arrangements with in-house specialist projects. She argues that the partnership enterprise touches the heart of the probation service's mission in local communities.

This book differentiates between categories of adolescent male offending and explores the behavioural and social profiles of those who become involved in violent offending and organized crime. Using self-reported and arrest data, the book examines key stages of male adolescent offending with a view to early recognition of behaviours that leave young men vulnerable to criminal exploitation and the escalation of violence. It also explains the importance of understanding crime motivations, how young men view themselves when they offend, and the emotions that they experience. Rather than looking at violent offending as a single category of behavior, the book helps readers differentiate between types of adolescent violence and to understand the underlying psychological and social causes. It offers an insight into the journey of young people who are criminally exploited and those who become involved in committing acts of serious violence and organized crime. It does so by using data from official records, self-reported offending, and the narratives of young people. Each chapter focuses on a particular stage of offending with a view to early identification, support, and diversion. Pathways to Adolescent Male Violent Offending is aimed at practitioners in youth offending services, youth work, policing, and education. It will also be useful for students of forensic and investigative psychology, criminal justice, policing, and child and adolescent mental health.

The perpetration of intimate partner violence by women has long been a controversial topic. More recently, researchers, treatment providers and other professionals have begun to critically examine theoretical, research and practice perspectives to gather a better understanding of this controversial issue. The current text will provide the reader with a more thorough discussion on our current understanding of the context and motivation of women's use of violence against intimate partners. This text will discuss the controversies related to the arrest and treatment of women arrested for domestic violence from a variety of theoretical perspectives while also providing updates on the current research focusing on typologies of female offenders. The text also provides a critical review of current treatment strategies for women arrested for domestic violence.

The contributors are the foremost leaders in the field of research and practice on intimate partner violence offending and have written chapters that provide a key review of the work that is currently emerging in the field. As a result, this text is the most comprehensive guide to date that discusses female perpetration of intimate partner violence. Recommendations for specific treatment with this population and implications for practice and policy are provided throughout.

This book was published as a special double issue of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.

This book recounts a successful effort to resocialize criminal offenders placed in Kibbutzim. Social scientist Michael Fischer and educational philosopher Brenda Geiger describe the events and experiences that unfolded when a Kibbutz adopted an Israeli ex-convict as a temporary member of its collective. They conclude that resocialization is achievable: that a world of hard work, interdependence, and self-denial can successfully compete against the temptations for adventure and diversion in an offender's past and present. Fischer and Geiger reconstruct the subjective experiences of the Israeli ex-convicts who were invited to live and work as members on separate Kibbutzim. They detail how a protective environment, daily routines, egalitarianism, peer group support, acceptance, and trust yielded involvement, commitment, and higher self-esteem on the part of the offenders. Relating the kibbutz experience to theories of social psychology and criminology, Fischer and Geiger offer a model for resocialization combining group dynamics with social learning in a context of meaningful work and acceptance. This study is valuable to students and scholars of social psychology, criminology, and Judaic Studies.

Sex offenders, and in particular paedophiles, have been the subject of much political and media attention, producing intensive debates about the best way of dealing with them. This book explores these issues, evaluating the measures in use or being considered, including drug treatment, MAPPA, the use of the Sex Offender Register, restorative justice techniques, and treatment programmes. It is concerned with high-risk sex offenders both when they are sentenced to a community order, and also when they are released back into the community after a custodial sentence.

The introductory section opens with a discussion on how terms such as paedophilia are constructed and viewed, and then looks at how government policy regarding sex offending has developed over recent years. Section two looks at issues concerned with risk management, questioning whether enough is being done to monitor the risk that high-risk offenders pose when released into society; whilst section three, on risk reduction covers the main methods of treatment, including sex offender treatment programmes, pharmacotherapy (chemical castration) and restorative and reintegration techniques.

Section Four focuses on specific offender groups; including female sexual offenders, sexual harm by youth, mentally disordered sexual offenders and intellectual disabled offenders. These assess in what ways these offenders are different to the 'norm' and look at how we should be dealing and treating these differences.

The final section looks at social and moral responsibilities, including the patterns, prevention and protection of cyber-sex offences and media constructions of and reactions to paedophilia. In the final chapter the concept of dignity is addressed and the balance between community protection and the rights of sex offenders involved is evaluated.

Young Offenders provides one of the most in-depth studies of young males seeking, if often failing, to find a life beyond crime and punishment. Through rich interview data of young offenders over a ten year period, this book explores the complex personal and situational factors that promote and derail the desistance process.

The past quarter-century has witnessed a dramatic upsurge of violent crime in the United States and abroad. In this country, the rise in violent criminal activity has been consistently documented in such published accounts as the Uniform Crime Reports and the Statistical Handbook on Violence in America, published by the FBI and the Vio lence Research Group, respectively. Further, social scientists-particularly those working in the fields of sociology and psychology-have provided a convergence of findings attesting to the magnitude of one of today's most significant social problems: domestic violence (e. g., spouse, child, and elder abuse). Such efforts have served as the impetus for heightened clinical and investigative activity in the area of violent be havior. Indeed, a wide range of mental health experts (such as psychologists, psychi atrists, social workers, counselors, and rehabilitation specialists) have endeavored to focus on strategies and issues in research and treatment for violent individuals and their victims. The purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive and timely examination of current psychological approaches with violent criminal offenders. Despite the fact that we continue to have much to learn about perpetrators of violent acts, in recent an increasingly large body of empirical data have been adduced about this years issue. However, these data generally have appeared in disparate journals and books. That being the case, it is our belief that such a handbook now is warranted."

Children and questions of moral behaviour are prominent social discourses. Adult attitudes towards children and their recognition of right and wrong impact upon society deeply, shaping the ways in which we think about children's participation, their citizenship and how they are 'governed' within the community. But upon what basis are such practices and policies built and how do they reflect the reality of social life for children? This work argues that much of society's thinking in relation to children and questions around social behaviour are linked to misplaced assumptions that are routed in views from the past. However, it is by engaging with children though a sociological perspective that it becomes clear that morality is not something that just happens to children but is part of their everyday lives.

Videos from the "What Is a Criminal?" lecture series whatisacriminal.org (the inspiration for the book) will remain freely available, and will be described in the book. These can be used by professors as supplemental multimedia content both for in-class and out-of-class assignments. The Editor has provided an instructors' introduction that suggests classroom uses for the individual essays and chapters. Some of the stories are told scholars, some by people working in the justice system, and some by people who were formally incarcerated. It is very rare to find these three groups participating in a common discussion about the core concept that brings them together. The book's narrative-based, multi-voiced form will not only help students think broadly and deeply about this important topic, but also interest them enough to share the stories with their families and friends, generating ideas and discussions that ripple well beyond the classroom.

Leading scholars summarize the current research on risk, protection, and resilience in the context of youth violence and its implications for practice with children and families. It describes an emerging framework for understanding social and health problems and for developing more effective programs for interventions. This book describes resilient children by examining risk factors for violence and explores the factors that lead some children to resist or adapt to risk.

The concept of resilience has been applied to family, school, neighborhood, and organizational contexts. Educational, family, and community resilience are used as the framework to describe social systems that possess risk factors. By understanding why some systems with risk factors are adaptable, information for assessment can be applied to service plans, that will be more effective in treating children at risk of antisocial, aggressive behavior.

Prisoner resettlement is high on current political and policy agendas. The high reconviction rates of ex-prisoners have been acknowledged for many years but the rapidly rising prison population has meant that more prisoners than ever before are released. This together with the pressure this puts on to the infrastructure of the prison estate and the publication of two influential reports which highlighted the problems faced by prisoners leaving prison has concentrated attention on attempts to ensure that prisoners do not return to prison once released. The resettlement of prisoners is now a priority policy area linked directly to Government initiatives to reduce reoffending. The renewed policy interest in prisoners resettlement forms the context of this volume, which brings together current knowledge and understanding about prisoners resettlement. The book draws on the contributors extensive experience as researchers and practitioners in the field and includes contributions from acknowledged experts. Prisoner Resettlement provides a comprehensive review and analysis of resettlement policy and practice in England and Wales in the early part of the 21st century. In particular it: critically reviews current policy, theory, practice and research on prisoners resettlement explores practice issues through case studies of two resettlement initiatives and an examination of accommodation provision and voluntary sector involvement in prisoners resettlement; and examines the particular issues raised by the resettlement of different groups of prisoners including women, minority ethnic groups, prolific and priority offenders and high-risk offenders.

A critical perspective on the treatment of incarcerated women-and their children Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy challenges conventional thinking about the therapeutic issues facing female prisoners and their children. Therapists, counselors, scholars, and activists examine the injustices of the criminal justice system and the roles feminist therapists can play in deconstructing and demystifying the lives of women prisoners by becoming more involved in clinical work. Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy examines this growing problem from a feminist perspective, debunking stereotypes about women perpetrators with a thorough examination of gender-responsive treatment of women in a variety of settings. This unique book includes a macro analysis of gender and criminality; an assessment of violence and the abuse of women; parenting and the impact of incarceration on children; treatment approaches developed specifically for women prisoners; and an outline of what women need when leaving prison life. The book also examines crucial issues facing women prisoners, including sexual abuse and assault, substance abuse, mental and physical health concerns, human rights, violence, discrimination, and the unique problems of women prisoners of color. Topics addressed in Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy include: designing and delivering gender-responsive programs for women developing therapeutic measures to correct and normalize marginalized women mistreatment of women prisoners in the United States domestic violence and its connection to criminalization counseling sexually abused women motherhood, crime, and prison the effects of incarceration on children and families women, addiction, and incarceration using drama therapy with incarcerated women feminist support groups transitioning after release from prison and much more Inside and Out: Women, Prison, and Therapy is a vital professional resource for therapists and counselors who work with female prisoners and their families.

This book examines young people's involvement in crime (including crimes of violence, vandalism, shoplifting, burglary and car crime) as both victims and offenders.

Although adolescence is the time when involvement in crime peaks, few previous UK-based studies have attempted to provide a methodical and comprehensive understanding of adolescent offending on a city-wide basis. This book seeks a better understanding of adolescent crime by studying the relationship between individual characteristics (social bonds and morality and self-control) and lifestyles (as defined by delinquent peers, substance use and exposure to risky behaviour settings) and their joint influence on adolescent involvement in crime, against the backdrop of the juveniles' social context - taking into account family, school and neighbourhood influences.

The findings of this study suggest the existence of three main groups of adolescent offenders; propensity induced offenders, life-style dependent offenders and situationally limited offenders, groups of offenders having different causal backgrounds to their crime involvement, and who therefore may warrant different strategies for effective prevention.

Questions about gender, justice and crime are constantly in the public arena, whether they focus on young women getting drunk or taking drugs, or the rising numbers of women going to prison or committing violent crimes, or reports of macho behaviour on the part of men in the military, law enforcement or professional sport. This book provides a key text for students seeking to understand feminist and gendered perspectives on criminology and criminal justice, bringing together the most innovative research and work which has taken the study of the relationship between gender and justice into the twenty-first century. The book addresses many of the issues of concern to the established feminist agenda (such as the gender gap, equity in the criminal justice system, penal regimes and their impact on women), but also shows the ways in which these themes have been extended, reinterpreted and answered in new and distinctive ways. Organised into sections on gender and offending behaviour, gender and the criminal justice system, and new concepts and approaches, Gender and Justice: new concepts and approaches will be essential reading for students taking courses in criminology and criminal justice, and anybody else wishing to understand the complex and changing relationship between gender and justice.

From arrest to release, the organizational response to mentally ill offenders is continually evolving according to existing policies and resources. How organizations respond, how they should respond, and their ability to evolve is important. The chapters in this volume offer cases with wide ranging policy implications regarding structural and functional changes institutions and organizations might consider given the confines of context and resources to improve the conditions of mentally ill offenders. Policies regarding mentally ill offenders are played out differently by state and county, and the capacity of communities to support individuals with mental illness and criminal histories varies. The quantitative and qualitative research on organizational responses to offenders with mental illness highlighted herein include program evaluation; data collection; best practices in resource utilization; dispositions and the courts; screening; and a broader articulation of outcomes given the special needs of the population.