This major new book brings together leading researchers in the field in order to describe and analyse internationally significant theoretical and empirical work on offender supervision, and to address the policy and practice implications of this work within and across jurisdictions. Arising out of the work of the international Collaboration of Researchers for the Effective Development of Offender Supervision (CREDOS), this book examines questions and issues that have arisen both within effectiveness research, and from research on desistance from offending. The book draws out the lessons that can be learned not just about what works?, but about how and why particular practices support desistance in specific jurisdictional, cultural and local contexts.

Key themes addressed in this book include:

• New directions in theory and paradigms for practice
• Staff skills and effective offender supervision
• Different issues and challenges in improving offender supervision
• The role of families, significant others and social networks
• Understanding and supporting compliance within supervision
• Exploring the social, political, organisational and historical contexts of offender supervision

Offender Supervision will be essential reading for academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, policy makers, managers and practitioners interested in offender supervision.

Prisoners' Rights: Principles and Practice considers prisoners' rights from socio-legal and philosophical perspectives, and assesses the advantages and problems of a rights-based approach to imprisonment. At a time of record levels of imprisonment and projected future expansion of the prison population, this work is timely. The discussion in this book is not confined to a formal legal analysis, although it does include discussion of the developing jurisprudence on prisoners' rights. It offers a socio-legal rather than a purely black letter approach, and focuses on the experience of imprisonment. It draws on perspectives from a range of disciplines to illuminate how prisoners' rights operate in practice. The text also contributes to debates on imprisonment and citizenship, the treatment of women prisoners, and social exclusion. This book will be of interest to both undergraduate and postgraduate students of penology and criminal justice, as well as professionals working within the penal system.

Few issues attract greater concern and censure than those that surround youth 'gangs'. Paradoxically, youth researchers have conventionally been reluctant to even use the term 'gang' but, more recently, such reluctance has receded. Indeed, it is increasingly claimed that - in particular urban 'territories' - youth gangs are commonplace, some young people are deeply immersed in violence and the carrying and use of weapons (particularly knives and firearms) is routine. Comprizing a series of essays from leading national and international researchers, this book subjects such claims to rigorous critical scrutiny. It provides a challenging and authoritative account of complex questions pertaining to urban youth identities, crime and social order. This book: locates the question of 'gangs' in both historical and contemporary contexts engages a spectrum of theoretical perspectives and analytical positions presents and analyzes cutting-edge empirical research addresses a range of previously neglected questions, including those pertaining to girls, young women and 'gangs'. Youth in Crisis? provides a vital resource for researchers, educators, policy-makers and practitioners with an interest in key questions facing criminology, sociology and social policy.

Delinquency Theories: Appraisals and applications provides a fulsome and accessible overview of contemporary theories of juvenile delinquency.

The book opens with a comprehensive description of what a theory is, and explains how theories are created in the social sciences. Following on, each subsequent chapter is dedicated to describing an individual theory, broken down and illustrated within four distinct sections. Initially, each chapter tells the tale of a delinquent youth, and from this example a thorough review of the particular theory and related research can be undertaken to explain the youth s delinquent behaviour. The third and fourth sections of each chapter critically analyze the theories, and provide a straightforward discussion of policy implications of each, thus encouraging readers to evaluate the usefulness of these theories and also to consider the relationship between theory and policy.

This text is an invaluable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students of subjects such as youth justice, delinquency, social theory, and criminology.

This book brings to life the experiences of children affected by maternal imprisonment, and provides unique, in-depth analysis of judicial thinking on this issue. It explores the experiences of children whose mothers are sentenced to imprisonment in England and Wales and contrasts their state-sanctioned separation from their mothers in the criminal courts (where the court may not even be aware of the existence of a child) to the state-sanctioned separation of children from their parents in the family courts, where the child has legal representation and their best interests are the court's paramount consideration. Drawing on detailed empirical research with children, caregivers, and Crown Court judiciary, Maternal Sentencing and the Rights of the Child brings together relevant literature on law, criminology, and human rights to provide insight into the reasons for the differentiated treatment and its implications for children, their caregivers, and wider society.

- explores education in a prison setting from the perspective of the learners themselves. - examines how prisoners conceive their experiences in their own words. - adds further weight to existing 'beyond employability' discourse, which looks at 'other' or 'soft' outcomes of educational experiences in the prison setting.

Norms of Violence: Violent Socialization Processes and the Spillover Effect for Youth Crime explores the degree to which violent socialization processes, both at the macro- and micro-levels, are associated with youth criminal behavior. Based on a quantitative test of an integrated theory of social control and culture of violence, the author argues that violent socialization is a process involving physical violence, exposure to violence, and pro-violent communications. All three dimensions, in combination with national level indicators of violence, contribute to a norm of violence which, at a national-level, spills over into other dimensions of society, including the family environment. This book seeks to answer if violent socialization processes truly control youth behavior. Various quantitative methods are used to demonstrate how violent socialization tends to be more prevalent in nations with indicators of violence compared to nations without such indicators. The spilling over of violence into socialization processes creates a context of violence normalized as a form of social control, which exacerbates youth criminal behavior within pro-violent nations. This book is unique in propelling a more thorough explanation of international youth crime by focusing on both victimization (violent socialization) and offending, rather than arguing solely that victimization is a correlate of youth crime. It provides a reference point for future comparative research offering theoretical explanations for youth crime across different nations and is essential reading for those engaged in youth and juvenile justice efforts and scholars interested in issues surrounding violence, youth, and justice.

When approached by Plenum to put together a volume of social science research on the topic of "youth and justice," I found the interdisciplinary challenge of such a project intriguing. Having spent 2 years as Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation, I was well aware of the rich diversity of research that could fit within that topic. I also knew that excellent research on youth and justice was coming from different communities of researchers who often were isolated from each other in their respective disciplines as psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, or policy analysts. I saw this project as an opportunity to break down some of this isolation by introducing these researchers-and their work-to each other and to the broader community of social scientists interested in law and justice. There was another gap, or set of gaps, to be bridged as well. The juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system differ in significant ways, and the civil justice system, which is a major venue for issues of youth and justice, is yet another separate world. Few researchers are likely to know the whole picture. For example, a focus on juvenile justice often ignores the extent to which civil justice proceedings shape the lives of young people through divorce, custody, adoption, family preservation policies, and other actions (and vice versa).

Though many more women offenders are supervised in the community than in custody, much less is known about their needs and effective approaches to their supervision, support and treatment. Whilst there has been recent attention paid to responding to the needs of women in prison, negligible attention has been paid to women exiting prison, or on community based orders, and what is needed to work with them to reduce re-offending or entry into prison.
Contributions to this book challenge policy-makers and corrections systems to concentrate more on community provision for women offenders and resist popular calls for more punitive responses to all offenders, women included. Contributors come from a wide range of countries including Australia, Canada, UK and USA. They argue that the criminogenic lens applied to women's offending must be gender-responsive if systems are to be successful at addressing the disadvantage and risk associated with offending behaviour.
Working With Women Offenders in the Community builds on ideas presented in the editors? previous book, What Works With Women Offenders (2007), extending the focus particularly on women offenders in the community rather than in prison. This book concentrates on women who have committed criminal offences and who may have been placed on probation or other community based court orders or who have been released from prison on parole. It discusses the work done by professional workers including probation officers, community corrections officers and specialist case managers in areas such as drug treatment, housing, mental health or employment programmes.
This book will be of interest to professional probation officers, case managers, drug treatment workers and others who work with women offenders. It will also be essential reading for students of criminology, social work, psychology, sociology and other disciplines who have an interest in women offenders.

Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment addresses the reasons why people stop offending, and the processes by which they are rehabilitated or resettled back into the community. Engaging with, and building upon, renewed criminological interest in this area, Escape Routes nevertheless broadens and enlivens the current debate. First, its scope goes beyond a narrowly-defined notion of crime and includes, for example, essays on religious redemption, the lives of ex-war criminals, and the relationship between ethnicity and desistance from crime. Second, contributors to this volume draw upon a number of areas of contemporary research, including urban studies, philosophy, history, religious studies, and ethics, as well as criminology. Examining new theoretical work in the study of desistance and exploring the experiences of a number of groups whose experiences of life after punishment do not usually attract much attention, Escape Routes provides new insights about the processes associated with reform, resettlement and forgiveness. Intended to drive our understanding of life after punishment forward, its rich array of theoretical and substantive papers will be of considerable interest to criminologists, lawyers, and sociologists.

This book provides a theoretically informed guide to the practice of working with offenders in different settings and for different purposes. It deals with topics such as offender rehabilitation, case management, worker-offender relationships, working with difficult clients and situations, collaboration, addressing complex needs, and processes of integration. The book offers a unique perspective on working with offenders in that it incorporates three key elements. As part of the latter, it provides different types of data, including descriptions of programs and selected statistics from each jurisdiction, and presents this information in easy-to-read formats. The chapters are structured around a dual focus of workers and their environments on the one hand, and the nature of the offenders with whom they work on the other. The condition and situation of workers is thus considered in the context of the condition and situation of offenders, and the relationship between the two. The book is intended to be relevant and familiar to those already working in the field, as well as to introduce contemporary principles and practices to those wishing to do so in the future. Each chapter concludes with two key features. The first, Further Reading, is oriented toward concepts and the 'why' questions of practice. The second, Key Resources, alerts readers to appropriate manuals and handbooks, and the 'how' questions of practice. This includes reference to evidence-based examples of good practice and specific intervention models.

Though many more women offenders are supervised in the community than in custody, much less is known about their needs and effective approaches to their supervision, support and treatment. Whilst there has been recent attention paid to responding to the needs of women in prison, negligible attention has been paid to women exiting prison, or on community based orders, and what is needed to work with them to reduce re-offending or entry into prison.
Contributions to this book challenge policy-makers and corrections systems to concentrate more on community provision for women offenders and resist popular calls for more punitive responses to all offenders, women included. Contributors come from a wide range of countries including Australia, Canada, UK and USA. They argue that the criminogenic lens applied to women s offending must be gender-responsive if systems are to be successful at addressing the disadvantage and risk associated with offending behaviour.
Working With Women Offenders in the Community builds on ideas presented in the editors previous book, What Works With Women Offenders (2007), extending the focus particularly on women offenders in the community rather than in prison. This book concentrates on women who have committed criminal offences and who may have been placed on probation or other community based court orders or who have been released from prison on parole. It discusses the work done by professional workers including probation officers, community corrections officers and specialist case managers in areas such as drug treatment, housing, mental health or employment programmes.
This book will be of interest to professional probation officers, case managers, drug treatment workers and others who work with women offenders. It will also be essential reading for students of criminology, social work, psychology, sociology and other disciplines who have an interest in women offenders.

The Fifteenth Annual International Police Executive Symposium brought together 65 police executives, government officials, academics, and researchers to discuss issues relating to all aspects of policing in a global community. It focused on policing without borders, the need for national and international cooperation among policing agencies, and the need for cooperation between the police, the academic community, private policing agencies, and the general public. Drawn from the presentations made at this symposium and supplemented with additional input from eminent experts, Police Without Borders: The Fading Distinction between Local and Global reflects the current status of research on this timely and critical topic.

Topics discussed include:

• Policing activity, human rights, and corruption
• Female policing in India compared to other countries
• Challenges and obstacles in policing in Slovenia, China, Asia, and the Pacific
• Strategies for preventing juvenile delinquency in Japan and Hong Kong
• The threat caused by nonreturnable arrest warrants in Canada
• An insider 's look at the United Kingdom 's Integrated Special Branch, an intelligence unit
• Virtual organized crime in cyberspace
• A successful public housing safety initiative in the Eastern District of New York

Highlighting individual differences in police theory, style, and practice around the world, this volume opens a dialogue in which police agencies and academics can learn from other cultures, recognize their similarities, and move towards an improved global policing methodology.

How does the law deal with young offenders, and to what extent does the law protect and promote the rights of young people in conflict with the law? These are the central issues addressed by Young Offenders and the Law in its examination of the legal response to the phenomenon of youth offending, and the contemporary forces that shape the law.

This book develops the reader's understanding of the sociological, criminological, historical, political, and philosophical approaches to youth offending in England and Wales, and also presents a comparative review of developments in other jurisdictions. It provides a comprehensive critical analysis of the legislative and policy framework currently governing the operation of the youth justice system in England and Wales, and evaluates the response of the legal system in light of modern legislative framework and international best practice. All aspects of trial and pre-trial procedure affecting young offenders are covered, including: the age of criminal responsibility, police powers, trial procedure, together with the full range of detention facilities and non-custodial options.

Young Offenders and the Law provides, for the first time, a primary source of reference on youth offending. It is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Law, Criminology, and Criminal Justice Studies.

How does a social work student make the connection between sociological knowledge and day-to-day social work?

Sociology for Social Workers and Probation Officers provides an introduction to sociological ideas and research and places them firmly into the context of actual social work practice. It encourages readers to develop critical awareness and reach their own judgements about the usefulness and implications of holding certain conceptual positions and shows how social work can be better informed and improved by doing so.

Fully revised and updated throughout, this second edition examines sociology in relation to key areas of social work and probation practice, and includes one new chapter. Areas covered are:

• Family
• Childhood
• Youth
• Community
• Care and Caring
• Health and Illness
• Crime.

Essential reading for all social work and probation studies students, this text looks beyond individual and psychological explanations and solutions to develop a sociological knowledge base for social work practice.

How does the law deal with young offenders, and to what extent does the law protect and promote the rights of young people in conflict with the law? These are the central issues addressed by Young Offenders and the Law in its examination of the legal response to the phenomenon of youth offending, and the contemporary forces that shape the law.

This book develops the reader s understanding of the sociological, criminological, historical, political, and philosophical approaches to youth offending in England and Wales, and also presents a comparative review of developments in other jurisdictions. It provides a comprehensive critical analysis of the legislative and policy framework currently governing the operation of the youth justice system in England and Wales, and evaluates the response of the legal system in light of modern legislative framework and international best practice. All aspects of trial and pre-trial procedure affecting young offenders are covered, including: the age of criminal responsibility, police powers, trial procedure, together with the full range of detention facilities and non-custodial options.

Young Offenders and the Law provides, for the first time, a primary source of reference on youth offending. It is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Law, Criminology, and Criminal Justice Studies.

How does a social work student make the connection between sociological knowledge and day-to-day social work?

Sociology for Social Workers and Probation Officers provides an introduction to sociological ideas and research and places them firmly into the context of actual social work practice. It encourages readers to develop critical awareness and reach their own judgements about the usefulness and implications of holding certain conceptual positions and shows how social work can be better informed and improved by doing so.

Fully revised and updated throughout, this second edition examines sociology in relation to key areas of social work and probation practice, and includes one new chapter. Areas covered are:

• Family
• Childhood
• Youth
• Community
• Care and Caring
• Health and Illness
• Crime.

Essential reading for all social work and probation studies students, this text looks beyond individual and psychological explanations and solutions to develop a sociological knowledge base for social work practice.

It is well-established that the majority of youth offenders cease to commit crime in early adulthood, but the mechanisms behind the shift from a criminal to a conventional lifestyle are not fully understood. The Dynamics of Desistance aims to contribute to this nascent area of inquiry by providing a phenomenological account of the psychosocial processes involved in desistance from crime. Drawing on a variety of methods, including in-depth interviews with repeat offenders and their probation officers, police records and psychometric scores, this book charts the early stages of a journey taken by individuals who exist in the liminal space 'betwixt and between' crime and convention. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is used to explore the shifts that occur in desisters' minds and lives as they make the often turbulent transition to a crime-free life, and the dynamic processes that occur at this psychosocial boundary are described. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings in this book are explored in relation to key issues in desistance literature, and as such this book provides a key resource for academics and students working with the area of probation, as well as practitioners in involved in probation, social work and parole supervision.

The Sex Offender Register examines the origins, history, structure and legalities of the UK sex offender register, and explores how political and public opinion has influenced the direction the policy of registration has taken. Delving into the origins of the UK sex offender register and how the registration policy has evolved, this book provides an understanding of the register and its contribution to public protection while attempting to see the register as a policy that has grown and developed and as having an organic life of its own. The sex offender register is designed as a form of public protection rather than a punishment, requiring offenders to notify the police of their circumstances and to accept a degree of offender management from the police. The book: * puts the development of the register in its political, social and ethical context * considers the position of children and young people as offenders * outlines the movement of registered offenders across international borders * analyses how offenders can be removed from the register * explores how other countries in the UK manage sex offenders through registers * asks questions about the efficacy of the register and what contribution it makes to public protection * looks at specific aspects of registration including the management of information * delves into the experience of life on the register * examines the influence of public opinion * discusses the role of the police as custodians of the register and as offender managers. Exploring the different pressures brought to bear on the register, this book provides an authoritative starting point for police officers, social workers, probation officers, magistrates, students of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Policing, and the general reader wanting to understand where the UK sex offender register originated from and how it operates today.

Our knowledge of crime is based on three types of sources: the criminal justice system, victims, and offenders. For technological and other reasons the criminal justice system produces an increasing stream of information on crime. The rise of the victimization survey has given the victims a much larger role in our study of crime. There is, however, no concomitant development regarding offenders. This is unfortunate because offenders are the experts when it comes to offending.In order to understand criminal behavior, we need their perspective. This is not always a straightforward process, however, and information from offenders is often unreliable. This book is about what we can do to maximise the validity of what offenders tell us about their offending. Renowned experts from various countries present their experiences and insights, with a clear focus on methodological issues of fieldwork among various types of offender populations. Each contribution deals with with a few central issues: * How can offenders be motivated to participate in research? * How can offenders be motivated to tell the truth on their offending? * How can the information that offenders provide be checked and validated? * What can we learn from offenders that cannot be accessed from other sources? * With the aim of obtaining valid and reliable information, how, where and under which conditions should we observe offenders and talk to them?

This book provides a comprehensive dissemination of theoretically grounded and empirically sound research on sex offenders and sex offending. It uses diverse methodological approaches with implications for the research of criminal justice policy and practice. The chapters derive from and focus on different geographical contexts and generate empirical evidence concerning sex offenders and sex offending including: low sex recidivism rates; a lack of sex offender specialization; little to no evidence of sex offending continuity from adolescence to adulthood; and a host of collateral consequences of sex offender registration and notification policies with limited deterrent effect or public safety benefit. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Crime & Justice.

This book provides the first detailed examination of the role played by former loyalist and republican prisoners in grass roots conflict transformation work in the Northern Ireland peace process. It challenges the assumed passivity of former prisoners and ex-combatants. Instead, it suggests that such individuals and the groups which they formed have been key agents of conflict transformation. They have provided leadership in challenging cultures of violence, developed practical methods of resolving inter-communal conflict and found ways for communities to explore their troubled past. In analysing this, the authors challenge the sterile demonisation of former prisoners and the processes that maintain their exclusion from normal civic and social life. The book is a constructive reminder of the need for full participation of both former combatants and victims in post-conflict transformation. It also lays out a new agenda for reconciliation which suggests that conflict transformation can and should begin 'from the extremes'. The book will be of interest to students of criminology, peace and conflict studies, law and politics, geography and sociology as well as those with a particular interest in the Northern Ireland conflict.

The growth of Islam both worldwide and particularly in the United States is especially notable among African-American inmates incarcerated in American state and federal penitentiaries. This growth poses a powerful challenge to American penal philosophy, structured on the ideal of rehabilitating offenders through penance and appropriate penal measures. Islam in American Prisons argues that prisoners converting to Islam seek an alternative form of redemption, one that poses a powerful epistemological as well as ideological challenge to American penology. Meanwhile, following the events of 9/11, some prison inmates have converted to radical anti-Western Islam and have become sympathetic to the goals and tactics of the Al-Qa'ida organization. This new study examines this multifaceted phenomenon and makes a powerful argument for the objective examination of the rehabilitative potentials of faith-based organizations in prisons, including the faith of those who convert to Islam.

Designed as supplemental material for juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice courses, Juvenile Justice and Juvenile Delinquency: Case Studies Workbook fills a void in current textbooks. This workbook provides a hands-on experience that helps students understand the kinds of court hearings that take place in juvenile and family courts. It presents information about actual cases and prompts students to make decisions and design court orders for typical juvenile court cases. The case scenarios range from cases at the juvenile court intake level all the way to cases in which students must decide whether a young person should be waived into the criminal system to be tried as an adult. The book allows students to compare their choices with those of the actual judge or referee, and also gives information as to the outcome for the young person after the court's decision. This information helps students gauge the soundness of their own decisions based on the impacts of the actual decision reached by the judge or referee. Each chapter also contains statistics, facts, court decisions, and information about policies that enable a better understanding of the juvenile justice system. This workbook provides a unique opportunity for students to experience what it is like to face decisions in the juvenile court system. By engaging with the information and cases laid out in a more hands-on manner than offered in typical related textbooks, students will gain a greater appreciation for the decisions juvenile court judges and referees have to make on a daily basis.

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.