From prime-time television shows and graphic novels to the development of computer game expansion packs, the recent explosion of popular serials has provoked renewed interest in the history and economics of serialization, as well as the impact of this cultural form on readers, viewers, and gamers. In this volume, contributors-literary scholars, media theorists, and specialists in comics, graphic novels, and digital culture-examine the economic, narratological, and social effects of serials from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century and offer some predictions of where the form will go from here.

From prime-time television shows and graphic novels to the development of computer game expansion packs, the recent explosion of popular serials has provoked renewed interest in the history and economics of serialization, as well as the impact of this cultural form on readers, viewers, and gamers. In this volume, contributors-literary scholars, media theorists, and specialists in comics, graphic novels, and digital culture-examine the economic, narratological, and social effects of serials from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century and offer some predictions of where the form will go from here.

"Tackling prison overcrowding" is a response to controversial proposals for prisons and sentencing set out in by Lord Patrick Carter's "Review of Prisons", published in 2007. The Carter review proposed the construction of vast 'Titan' prisons to deal with the immediate problem of prison overcrowding, the establishment of a Sentencing Commission as a mechanism for keeping judicial demand for prison places in line with supply, along with further use of the private sector, including private sector management methods. "Tackling prison overcrowding" comprises nine chapters by leading academic experts, who expose these proposals to critical scrutiny. They take the Carter Report to task for construing the problems too narrowly, in terms of efficiency and economy, and for failing to understand the wider issues of justice that need addressing. They argue that the crisis of prison overcrowding is first and foremost a political problem - arising from penal populism - for which political solutions need to be found. This accessible report will be of interest to policy makers, probation practitioners, academics and other commentators on criminal policy.

The Government has embarked on a programme of radical reform for the probation and prison services with the setting up of a National Offender Management Service (NOMS). The aim is to make the two services work more effectively together, and to promote private sector involvement in 'corrections' work. This groundbreaking volume takes a critical look at the different aspects of the NOMS proposals, at a time when the Government is still working out the detail of its reforms. No other academic publication has scrutinised the NOMS proposals so closely. Through six contributions from leading experts on probation and criminal justice the report identifies the risks attached to NOMS; assesses the prospects of success; provides ideas for reshaping government plans and presents an authoritative critique of a set proposals that could go badly wrong. The report will be crucial reading for politicians, civil servants and criminal justice managers. Senior probation and prison staff will find it of particular value.

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Just after the Second World War Rosie Baker, a working girl from the slums of inner-city Auckland, beaten and close to death, is dumped from a flash city car onto the long grass outside an isolated farm gate. The two young farmers, maimed by war wounds and recovering from combat-induced madness, battling both the hostile and marginal farm, as well as their own insanity, fight to save Rosie. As Rosie recovers, she sees her chance to build a new life for both herself and the men, but Rosie's secrets and her own pathology bring the men and those around them to the edge of disaster. A gritty story set in the back country of New Zealand in the late forties. It takes us back to the great tradition of New Zealand rural story telling. The plot is fast-moving, the characters likable and although it is set in a time now past, it examines themes that are important today. Following a long career in education, Rob Allen is now emerging as a genuine New Zealand author, and the settings and characters, in his four novels to date, reflect that. He lives in Auckland and is passionate in his love for New Zealand; its places, people, landscape; and believes it to be a naturally spiritual place. This is Rob Allen's fourth novel. He has also written Apparition, Sons of the Poison Tree, and Mishi's Gift.

At a time when problems of crime and antisocial behaviour stimulate debate on big society solutions, this book provides an exceptional means of tracing a line of response which began at the end of the 18th century. Nipping Crime in the Bud explores the origins and development of the Philanthropic Society (and its influence on contemporary institutions) amid growing alarm about crime levels, Draconian sentences under England's Bloody Code and a paucity of effective crime prevention measures. Driven by Enlightenment zeal and ideals, this was the first voluntary sector charity devoted to 'nipping crime in the bud'. It did so through education, training, accommodation, mentoring and support for young people. Uniquely, the book traces the first hard won policy networks and partnerships between government and the voluntary sector. It reveals how-sometimes against the odds, with funding on a knife edge but constantly striving for effective answers-influential philanthropists rose to the challenge and changed approaches to young people involved in crime and delinquency, traces of which endure today within the great crime prevention charities which still rally to this cause. Muriel Whitten's book draws on previously neglected archival sources and other first-hand research to create a formidable and illuminating account about what, for many people, will be a missing chapter in English social and legal history. Review 'Describes in colourful detail the background to the founding of the Society and how its founders and their successors worked. It explains how their plans were put into practice, how they governed and how they acquired support. It skilfully deals with questions that are still asked today such as to what extent are children to be held responsible for wrongdoing? ... Dr Whitten is admirably suited to write such a book ... and] her knowledge and experience are distilled in this comprehensive and well-written book': John Hostettler, legal historian. Read the full review Author Dr. Muriel Whitten has been a youth and family court magistrate and a member of West Sussex Probation Committee. She has lectured widely on criminal justice matters at Goldsmith's and Birkbeck (University of London), the University of Ulster and has presented for CENTREX (now the National Policing Improvement Agency). She has also contributed a weekly column to the Belfast News Letter.