This title examines the role of political culture and penal populism in the response to the emotive subject of child-on-child homicide. Green explores the reasons underlying the vastly differing responses of the English and Norwegian criminal justice systems to the cases of James Bulger and Silje Redergard respectively. Whereas James Bulger's killers were subject to extreme press and public hostility, and held in secure detention for nine months before being tried in an adversarial court, and served eight years in custody, a Redergard's killers were shielded from public antagonism and carefully reintegrated into the local community. This book argues that English adversarial political culture creates far more incentives to politicize high-profile crimes than Norwegian consensus political culture. Drawing on a wealth of empirical research, Green suggests that the tendency for politicians to justify punitive responses to crime by invoking harsh political attitudes is based upon a flawed understanding of public opinion. In a compelling study, Green proposes a more deliberative response to crime is possible by making English culture less adversarial and by making informed public judgment more assessable.

The press called Martin's actions a "crime spree." Already convicted of armed robbery, Martin was facing the death penalty. In less than two weeks the jury would decide his fate. Terrified that his son would be sentenced to die, Phillip did the only thing he felt he could do: in an act of faith and desperation in his garage with the car exhaust running, Phillip made the consummate sacrifice to spare his son the ultimate punishment. Ironically, his suicide presented Martin's with another chance at life; the jury, moved by Martin's loss, spared his life.
Phillip's story-like those of the other parents, siblings, children, and cousins chronicled in this book-vividly illustrates the precarious position family members of capital offenders occupy in the criminal justice system. At once outsiders and victims, they live in the shadow of death, crushed by trauma, grief, and helplessness. In this penetrating account of guilt and innocence, shame and triumph, devastating loss and ultimate redemption, the voices of these family members add a new dimension to debates about capital punishment and how communities can prevent and address crime.
Restorative justice theory, which views violent crime as an extreme violation of relationships; searches for ways to hold offenders accountable; and meets the needs of victims and communities torn apart by the crime, organizes these narratives and integrates offenders' families into the process of transforming conflict and promoting justice and healing for all. What emerges from hundreds of hours' worth of in-depth interviews with family members of offenders and victims, legal teams, and leaders in the abolition and restorative justice movements is avision of justice strongly rooted in the social fabric of communities. Showing that forgiveness and recovery are possible in the wake of even the most heinous crimes, while holding victims' stories sacred, this eye-opening book bridges the pain of living in the shadow of death with the possibility of a reparative form of justice.
Anyone working with victims, offenders, and their families-from lawyers and social workers to mediators and activists-will find this riveting work indispensable to their efforts.

A groundbreaking book founded on extensive original research, designed to determine how restorative dialogue works, and the role of forgiveness within it. The research involved interviews with 20 victims who went through a Victim Offender Dialogue (used in crimes of severe violence), and documents how the shifts in energy during the course of their dialogue moves the toxicity associated with the crime to a different place. This study explores the role of bilateral forgiveness in restorative work and addresses key questions about the role of forgiveness in restorative justice, such as how it can be measured. It also outlines a model which explains how the energy flow of dyadic forgiveness in restorative justice dialogue is formed. Rich in data and in findings, this book will deepen understanding of how restorative justice works, and will inform future research and practice in the field.

This groundbreaking study examines patterns of offending among persistent juvenile offenders. The authors address questions that have been the focus of criminological debate over the last two decades. Are there are multiple groups of offenders in the population with distinct age-crime patterns? Are between-person differences in criminal offending patterns stable throughout the offender's life? Is there a relationship between offending at one time and at a subsequent time of life, after time-stable differences in criminal propensity are controlled? Ezell and Cohen address these issues by examining three large, separately drawn samples of serious youthful offenders from California. Each sample was tracked over a long time-period, and sophisticated statistical models were used to test eight empirical hypotheses drawn from three major theories of crime: population heterogeneity, state dependence, and dual taxonomy. Each of these three perspectives offers different predictions about the relationship between age and crime, and the possibility of crime desistance over the life of serious chronic offenders. Despite the serious chronic criminality among the sample offenders, by the time they reached their mid- to late twenties and continuing into their thirties, each of the six latent classes of offender identified by the study had begun to demonstrate a declining number of arrests. This finding has profound implications for penal policies that impose life sentences on multiple offenders, such as the Californian 'three strikes and you're out' which incarcerates inmates for 25 years to life with their 'third strike' conviction, at precisely the point when they have begun to grow out of serious crime.

This book addresses the role of victims in our criminal justice system and the shortcomings they perceive in the way they are treated. It examines whether restorative justice can offer them more justice than they receive from the formal court-based system. Research into the shortcomings of the court-based system has identified a number of issues that victims want to address. In brief, they want a less formal process where their views count, more information about both the processing and the outcome of their case, a greater opportunity for participation in the way their case is dealt with, fairer and more respectful treatment, and emotional as well as material restoration as an outcome. Over the past three decades, the victim movement worldwide has agitated for an enhanced role for victims in criminal justice. Despite some successes, it appears that structural as well as political factors may mean that victims have won as much as they are likely to gain from formal justice. A series of randomized controlled trials in Canberra, known as the Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE), has provided an opportunity to compare rigorously the impact on victims of court-based justice with a restorative justice program known as conferencing. In these experiments, middle-range property and violent offences committed by young offenders were assigned either to court (as they would normally have been treated) or to a conference. Empirical evidence from RISE examined in this book suggests that the restorative alternative of conferencing more often than court has the capacity to give victims what they say they want in achieving meaningful victim participation and restoration, especially emotional restoration.

The funny, insightful and moving account of what happens to a close, loving middle-class family when the father is unexpectedly thrown in jail. After fourteen years of marriage, Mel Jacob's life looked as perfect as the roses perched above her white picket fence. The nice house in the suburbs, two great kids, a good husband. Until... Her life took an unexpected detour when her seemingly saintly husband was jailed for two years. In Sickness, in Health . . . and in Jail follows Mel's funny, moving and insightful journey as she navigates single parenthood, prison visitations and nosy neighbours. Mel's revealing account is the story of the family left behind. It chronicles the grief, the stigma and the conversational minefields of her husband's whereabouts, as well as the logistical problems of making a baby sibling for her two children, and why it's not appropriate to tell people that Daddy's in jail. In Sickness, in Health . . . and in Jail is a funny and touching account of grief and love and forgiveness.

A detailed examination of the limitations and pitfalls of pursuing the community-based reform movement in the American criminal justice system. As the extent of America's mass incarceration crisis has come into sharper view, politicians, activists and non-profit foundations from across the political spectrum have united around "community-based" reforms. Many states are pursuing criminal justice reforms that aim to move youth out of state-run prisons and into community-based alternatives as a way of improving the lives of youth caught in the juvenile justice system. In The Myth of the Community Fix, Sarah D. Cate demonstrates that rather than a panacea, community-based juvenile justice reforms have resulted in a dangerous constellation of privatized institutions with little oversight. Focusing on case studies of three leading states for this model of reform-Texas, California, and Pennsylvania-Cate provides a comprehensive look at the alarming on-the-ground consequences of the turn towards community in an era of austerity. Although often portrayed as a break with past practices, this book documents how community-based reforms are the latest in a long line of policy prescriptions that further individualize the problem of delinquency, bolster punitiveness, and reduce democratic accountability. Through contextualizing the community-based reform movement as part of the broader shift away from the centralized provision of public goods in the United States, Cate shows why those committed to addressing the problems of mass incarceration should be wary of the community fix.

This fascinating study is the first to investigate the crimes of women living in Germany during the time of the Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Ulinka Rublack uses court records to examine the lives of shrewd cutpurses, quarelling artisan wives, and soldiers' concubines, and explores women's experience of communities and courtship, marriage, the family, and the law.

The rebuilding of Holloway Prison announced in 1968 was intended to be of enormous significance for the treatment and therapeutic rehabilitation of women inmates. Reconstruction began in 1970, but the new prison was not completed until 1985, by which time penal ideologies had changed. The prison department had revised its conceptions of women's criminality, and what had been intended to be a new therapeutic prison had become a place of conventional discipline and containment. These developments created serious problems within the prison and led to Holloway being identified as a public and political scandal. Using original documents and extensive interviews, the author traces the genesis and consequences of the decision to rebuild England's major prison for women, and shows how the experiment at Holloway reflects shifting attitudes towards female criminals, and the relations between penal ideology, architecture, control, and behaviour in a penal establishment.

Sentencing reform has become a highly controversial political issue. This new collection of essays brings together case studies of legislative reform initiatives in the USA and Canada, Australia, Sweden, and England and Wales. It also includes essays by leading international authorities on the impetus for and dynamics of change, and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the reform of sentencing practice in the West.

An examination of the efforts of faith-based organizations to expand the rights of the formerly incarcerated The use of religion to rehabilitate and redeem formerly incarcerated individuals has been a cultural touchstone of the modern era. Yet religious outreach to those with criminal records has typically been associated with an emphasis on private spirituality, with efforts focused on repentance, conversion, and restorative justice. This book sheds light on how faith-based organizations utilize the public arena, mobilizing to expand the social and political rights of former inmates. In "Jesus Saved an Ex-Con," Edward Orozco Flores profiles Community Renewal Society and LA Voice, two faith-based organizations which have actively waged community organizing campaigns to expand the rights of people with records. He illuminates how these groups help the formerly incarcerated re-enter broader communities through the expansion of citizenship rights and participation in civic engagement. Most work on prisoner reentry has focused on how the behavior of those with records may be changed through interventions, rather than considering how those with records may change the society that receives them. Flores explores how the formerly incarcerated use redemption scripts to participate in civic engagement, to remove the felony conviction question from employment applications and to restrict the use of criminal background checks in housing and employment. He shows that people with records can redeem themselves while also challenging and changing the way society receives them.

Cally Magalhaes' memoir is a gripping page-turner of an autobiography. With a novelist's eye for descriptive detail, Cally invites us to accompany her on her astonishing journey from England to India and Estonia, and finally to Sao Paulo, Brazil. We join her as she follows a trail of signs and blessings to bring relief, hope and healing to people who need help, wherever they may be - in the streets, the favelas, the prisons or hidden under bridges. She describes in moving detail the transformational work of The Eagle Project, using psychodrama and Restorative Justice in Brazilian prisons. To read this book is to be inspired by the positive change one person can bring to so many individual lives - changing the world one person at a time. Cally has much to teach us about being fully present for all of life's events and challenges. With hard-won wisdom and deep reflection, she describes a life based on faith and gratitude, encapsulated in her ringing sentence, 'When you help people who have nothing, then you realise you have everything.' Her memoir has lessons for us all about what it means to walk the Earth with grace and love.

The stated mission of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is "to protect society by confining offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and community-based facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and that provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens." In support of this mission, BOP offers a variety of rehabilitative programs, including work opportunities through the Federal Prison Industries (FPI), occupational education programs, literacy/GED courses, and a variety of drug abuse treatment programs. This book examines the amount of resources available to BOP to carry out its mission to provide rehabilitative programming to federal inmates and the structure of incentives and effectiveness of inmates to participate in rehabilitative programming.

On March 11, 1985, a van was pulled over in Warsaw for a routine traffic check that turned out to be anything but routine. Inside was Marek Kaminski, a Warsaw University student who also ran an underground press for Solidarity. The police discovered illegal books in the vehicle, and in a matter of hours five secret police escorted Kaminski to jail. A sociology and mathematics major one day, Kaminski was the next a political prisoner trying to adjust to a bizarre and dangerous new world. This remarkable book represents his attempts to understand that world.

As a coping strategy until he won his freedom half a year later by faking serious illness, Kaminski took clandestine notes on prison subculture. Much later, he discovered the key to unlocking that culture--game theory. Prison first appeared an irrational world of unpredictable violence and arbitrary codes of conduct. But as Kaminski shows in riveting detail, prisoners, to survive and prosper, have to master strategic decision-making. A clever move can shorten a sentence; a bad decision can lead to rape, beating, or social isolation. Much of the confusion in interpreting prison behavior, he argues, arises from a failure to understand that inmates are driven not by pathological emotion but by predictable and rational calculations.

Kaminski presents unsparing accounts of initiation rituals, secret codes, caste structures, prison sex, self-injuries, and of the humor that makes this brutal world more bearable. This is a work of unusual power, originality, and eloquence, with implications for understanding human behavior far beyond the walls of one Polish prison.

Why I Chase Comedians and Other Bipolar Tales is written with self-observational humour and a comical self-deprecating irony. Frankie Owens takes the reader inside the turbulent mind of someone afflicted by hypermania. He deals with the extremities of the bipolar condition - highs, lows, in-betweens - allowing readers to understand its overwhelming nature. Written in the style of his acclaimed Little Book of Prison, this new work follows a relapse when the author (founder of the Read and Grow Society and by now a respected, law-abiding exponent of Criminology and Literacy) found himself back in prison following a manic episode. The book shows how he struggled with booming ideas, breathtaking feats of imagination, coming down to Earth and dealing with the wreckage. It contrasts the out-and-out ability of this well-respected expert in criminology and literacy with bizarre behaviour as he serves time a second time around and rebuilds his life once more. A rare journey into the bipolar mind which 'opens-up' on mental health. A raw, challenging, humorous account.

How do you break the vicious cycle of violence that affects the lives of many young people today? Transformative programmes can help young people to change the way they think about themselves and their futures, and offer support to help them to become resilient and positive young leaders of their community. This manual, based on approaches used successfully by Leap Confronting Conflict, is a guide to designing and setting up transformative programmes and targeted interventions with young people. Part 1 provides guidance and advice on developing a transformative programme and demonstrates how it can help young people break free of violence. Part 2 outlines a full programme on building leadership skills made up of four workshops: Leadership, Advanced Leadership, Leadership in Action, and Fear and Fashion: Tackling knife carrying and use. The manual is packed with exercises and activities and includes full guidance notes and tips on setting up and facilitating the workshops. It will be invaluable for all those working with young people at risk of violence, those managing and delivering programmes for young people, and policy makers, academics and students in youth and conflict fields.

Maintaining a balance between managing and assessing risk and upholding the required high standards of practice in health and social care can be demanding, particularly in the current climate of increased preoccupation with the difficult tensions between rights, protection and risk-taking. Good Practice in Assessing Risk is a comprehensive guide to good practice for those working with risk, covering a wide variety of health, social care and criminal justice settings including child protection, mental health, work with sex offenders and work with victims of domestic violence. The contributors discuss a range of key issues relating to risk including positive risk-taking, collaborating with victims and practitioners in the design of assessment tools, resilience to risk, and defensibility. The book also explores the role of bureaucracy in hindering high quality professional practice, complex decision-making in situations of stress or potential blame, and involving service users in assessment. This book reflects the latest policy and practice within health, social care and criminal justice and will be an invaluable volume to all professionals working in these fields.

The new edition of Girls, Delinquency, and Juvenile Justice combines cutting-edge research and expanded coverage of girls delinquency, including coverage of girls in gangs and the sexual trafficking of girls, to provide students with an accessible, up-to-date, and globally oriented textbook. * Including global perspectives and coverage of cutting-edge research, this is the only textbook to deal exclusively with girls and crime * Offers expanded coverage of girls in gangs and emerging literature on the sexual trafficking of girls * Pulls together and analyzes all existing literature on the subject of female delinquency * Brings to light new research on a wide range of issues, including the conditions of confinement for girls incarcerated in juvenile jails and prisons, Latina girls, and gender responsive programming * Explores the moral panic around "violent," "bad," and "mean" girls

What should be done with minors who kill, maim, defile, and destroy the lives of others? The state of Texas deals with some of its most serious and violent youthful offenders through "determinate sentencing," a unique sentencing structure that blends parts of the juvenile and adult justice systems. Once adjudicated via determinate sentencing, offenders are first incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As they approach age eighteen, they are either transferred to the Texas prison system to serve the remainder of their original determinate sentence or released from TYC into Texas's communities. The first long-term study of determinate sentencing in Texas, Lost Causes examines the social and delinquent histories, institutionalization experiences, and release and recidivism outcomes of more than 3,000 serious and violent juvenile offenders who received such sentences between 1987 and 2011. The authors seek to understand the process, outcomes, and consequences of determinate sentencing, which gave serious and violent juvenile offenders one more chance to redeem themselves or to solidify their place as the next generation of adult prisoners in Texas. The book's findings-that about 70 percent of offenders are released to the community during their most crime-prone years instead of being transferred to the Texas prison system and that about half of those released continue to reoffend for serious crimes-make Lost Causes crucial reading for all students and practitioners of juvenile and criminal justice.

Drawing on an extensive body of literature, The Rehabilitation of Partner-Violent Men presents an historical account of the policy changes that have led to rehabilitation programmes for male perpetrators of intimate partner violence within the criminal justice system. * Presents a review of the current state of male partner-violence theory and related intervention programmes in the UK * Draws on both national and international literature within the field * Provides an overview of the theoretical foundation behind current approaches to the rehabilitation of partner-violent men * Offers an appraisal of the effectiveness of current practicesA and directions for future advances in intervention and evaluation science

Victim awareness and the needs of victims of crime are a major societal concern. What Have I Done? is a photocopiable resource and downloadable online content to encourage empathy in young people who commit crimes or hurt others through their actions. It is designed to be used directly with young people who have committed a specific crime or caused harm and distress to others through their actions, and challenges the young person to face the harm they have caused and consider what they can do to help put things right. The course is flexible and interactive, and can be used on an individual basis or with small groups, and is suitable for young people with limited literacy. The exercises are challenging, and aim to be engaging through the use of creative arts, film, role-play and discussion. Clear guidance is provided for the course leader, and evaluation is built into the course, including a psychometric test. A downloadable online content to help stimulate discussion is also included. What Have I Done? will be ideal for victim empathy work in Youth Offending Teams and Young Offender Institutions, and can equally be used in schools, children's homes, youth groups and any context with young people. The programme is measurable, featuring pre- and post-programme empathy scales, and is suitable for young offenders subject to a youth rehabilitation order.

R U Listenin'? challenges men to reflect on their personal and emotional behaviour and uses prison life as an analogy to help them rethink their perspectives. Aimed at professionals working with men who are challenging the boundaries of society or any man who feels frustrated by his life, the book offers detailed illustrative case studies, structured exercises and topics for discussion, which can be used by the individual or in a group context. These features are identified in the text by pictorial icons, making the book easy to navigate. The exercises are imaginative and challenging, encouraging men to develop social and communication skills and an understanding of how the structures of society work. The author also suggests exercises and techniques for dealing with challenging groups, which are ideal for use by group facilitators. This book provides positive guidance for troubled men and is an essential tool for professionals working with young offenders and men with challenging behaviour.

'Robinson and Crow have achieved the seemingly impossible: a book about rehabilitation that transcends the "medical model", that is original and contemporary yet grounded in a sophisticated history, and most of all that is fun to read. It will become a new classic text in a field that has been crying out for one' - Professor Shadd Maruna, Queen's University, Belfast 'In an age where there is much public and political confusion about many criminal justice matters, this book brings considerable clarity to the idea of rehabilitation, its theoretical and historical roots, and contemporary practical application. This is an accessible, lively, and critical account of a concept which is central to the shape of the criminal justice system in pursuance of something that will "work" to reduce reoffending. "Rehabilitation" seems to go in and out of fashion depending on the politics of the day, but the careful and thorough examination of the different contexts in which it operates and competing perspectives on its potential offered here highlights its enduring qualities. This is a fascinating and engaging book by two established and "real world" scholars which will serve students and policy makers alike in the fields of criminal justice and social policy' - Loraine Gelsthorpe, Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge This comprehensive text explains all the key themes in the development and practice of offender rehabilitation. It explores how the issue fits within its wider social and political contexts, giving an insight into its current and future relevance to criminal justice. The book covers the full range of rehabilitative approaches, exploring how criminal justice responses have been influenced by trends such as the treatment model, 'What Works?', desistance, risk and public protection, and changes in social policy. It offers the following essential features: " theoretical grounding - providing students with all the essential background they need in order to fully understand the subject " historical context - enabling the reader to see how ideas, policies and practices have developed over time " research focus - introducing the reader to questions about how rehabilitative approaches have been evaluated and debates about 'what works' for particular groups of offenders, such as sexual offenders and drug misusers " study questions and further reading - giving students the tools both to revise and to expand their knowledge Offender Rehabilitation both advances thinking about the notion of rehabilitation, and ensures that students of crime and justice can keep abreast of the most recent developments in this area.

Contemporary law and government are increasingly characterized by a focus on risk. Fields such as health, psychiatry, criminal justice, vehicle safety, urban design and environmental governance all provide examples of settings in which problems are dealt with as risks. While risk has become more prominent, there have also been changes in the nature of risk techniques deployed. Whereas welfare states provided many services through socialized risk - such as social insurances covering health, employment and old age - increasing emphasis is now placed on individual risk management arrangements such as private insurance. In this environment, the positive side of risk has also been made more salient. Enterprise, innovation and risk-taking have become qualities valued, or even required, of current governance. In this volume, the most influential examinations and interpretations of this major trend have been brought together, in order to make clear the range and diversity, the spread and penetration of risk in contemporary societies.

Juvenile Justice for the 21st Century provides students with engaging articles and the latest research on emerging topics within the field. This anthology provides readers with valuable information on the current issues facing contemporary youths and the professionals who work with them on a daily basis. The text is composed of one original piece and seven research articles that cover issues related to race, substance abuse, LGBTQ identity and community, mental health, technology, and reentry success. Individual topics include minority disproportion in the system, the impact of juvenile mental health court on recidivism rates among youth, the overrepresentation of LGBTQ youth within the child welfare to juvenile justice crossover population, and more. The text recognizes the critical role of treatment and rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system and underscores the importance of leveraging current research to guide effective practices and approaches. Featuring timely, scholarly information, Juvenile Justice for the 21st Century is an ideal supplementary text for courses within criminal justice and sociology, especially those with focus on juvenile justice and delinquency issues.