Rehabilitation and Probation in England and Wales, 1900-1950 draws on a wide range of archive material to describe the arrival of a modern probation service. Focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, it describes the debates, conflicts and compromises that resulted in the creation of a state sponsored, centrally controlled, professional, secular, social work and psychological based agency. Following a chronological structure, Ray Gard explores the arrival of the so-called period of 'penal optimism', showing how rehabilitation arrived in the courts of England and Wales. The book uses archive and original material to give voice to those devising and implementing policy, revealing an uneven path to a modern probation system.

Rehabilitation and Probation in England and Wales, 1876-1962 draws on a wide range of archive material to describe the arrival of a modern probation service. Focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, it describes the debates, conflicts and compromises that resulted in the creation of a state sponsored, centrally controlled, professional, secular, social work and psychological based agency. Following a chronological structure, Ray Gard explores the arrival of the so-called period of 'penal optimism', showing how rehabilitation arrived in the courts of England and Wales. The book uses archive and original material to give voice to those devising and implementing policy, revealing an uneven path to a modern probation system.

The rehabilitation of the offender in the community is today an integral part of many criminal justice jurisdictions. This book takes a step back and describes how this modern aspect of criminal justice was introduced in England and Wales. At one level it is a history of criminal justice in England and Wales, at another an account of how shifting psychological and social work discourses became applied to the offender. It describes how modern beliefs in the treatment of the criminal arrived. The work uses archive material to show how policy and practice debates were resolved and the uneven and contested journey to a distinctly modern set of community penalties. Much of that archive material is discussed for the first time in this work and includes both government and practitioner records. The book will be of interest to all those working in the criminal justice sector or concerned with the rehabilitation of the criminal. The work is also aimed at academic historians and criminologists, particularly those interested in emerging debates about the history of crime and its treatment.