All the world's criminal justice systems need to undertake direct work with people who have come into their care or are under their supervision as a result of criminal offences. Typically, this is organized in penal and correctional services - in custody in prisons, or in the community, supervised by services such as probation. Bringing together international experts, this book is the go-to source for students, researchers, and practitioners in criminal justice, looking for a comprehensive and authoritative summary of available knowledge in the field.
Covering a variety of contexts, settings, needs, and approaches, and drawing on theory and practice, this Companion brings together over 90 entries, offering readers concise and definitive overviews of a range of key contemporary issues on working with offenders. The book is split into thematic sections and includes coverage of:
- Theories and models for working with offenders
- Policy contexts of offender supervision and rehabilitation
- Direct work with offenders
- Control, surveillance, and practice
- Resettlement
- Application to specific groups, including female offenders, young offenders, families, and ethnic minorities
- Application to specific needs and contexts, such as substance misuse, mental health, violence, and risk assessment
- Practitioner and offender perspectives
- The development of an evidence base
This book is an essential and flexible resource for researchers and practitioners alike and is an authoritative guide for students taking courses on working with offenders, criminal justice policy, probation, prisons, penology, and community corrections.
About the Author: Pamela Ugwudike is Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Southampton, UK. She is also affiliated with the Alan Turing Institute as a Turing Fellow. Her research interests include studying advances in critical criminological theory and analysing criminal justice policy and practice. She is particularly interested in theoretical and empirical studies of interactions between digital technology and criminal justice, and the implications for social justice. Her recent publications include An Introduction to Critical Criminology (2015) and Evidence-Based Skills in Criminal Justice: International Research on Supporting Rehabilitation and Desistance (2018, co-edited with Peter Raynor and Jill Annison).
Hannah Graham is Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR) in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, UK. As a criminologist and social scientist, Hannah works with governments and parliaments, practitioners, citizens, communities, and civic society to help inform real-world change and collaboratively build more just societies. She has made contributions in Scottish, European, and Australasian contexts. Also, Hannah is developing a growing research agenda on innovation and justice, on which she has researched, written, and spoken in different countries. Her publications include Supporting Desistance and Recovery (2016), Innovative Justice (2015), and Working with Offenders: A Guide to Concepts and Practices (2010), all published internationally by Routledge.
Fergus McNeill is Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he works in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR). He has published extensively on institutions, cultures, and practices of punishment - and on how they might be best reformed in the light of evidence about desistance from crime. This work has led to a series of engagements with policy, practice, and people with lived experience of punishment in numerous jurisdictions.
Peter Raynor is Emeritus Research Professor of Criminology at Swansea University, UK, and has been carrying out and publishing research on criminal justice and offender management for more than 40 years. Over 200 publications include jointly edited collections on offender supervision (with McNeill and Trotter), compliance (with Ugwudike), social work with offenders (with McIvor), and race and probation (with Lewis, Smith, and Wardak). He is a member of the Correctional Services Accreditation and Advisory Panel for England and Wales, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Faye S. Taxman is University Professor in the Criminology, Law and Society Department and Director of the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence at George Mason University, USA. Her work covers the breadth of the correctional system from jails and prisons to community corrections and adult and juvenile offenders, including all types of interventions and system improvement factors. Dr Taxman has published over 125 articles. She is the author (with Steve Belenkos) of Implementing Evidence-Based Community Corrections and Addiction Treatment (2011). She is also on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Experimental Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, and Journal of Offender Rehabilitation.
Chris Trotter is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Social Work at Monash University, Australia and Director, Monash Criminal Justice Research Consortium. Prior to his appointment to Monash he worked for many years as a social worker and manager in adult corrections, child protection, and youth justice. He has undertaken more than 30 funded research projects and has more than 100 publications, including eight books. His book Working with Involuntary Clients, now in its third edition, is published in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German. He has a strong international reputation, particularly for his work on pro-social modelling, and has been invited to more than 15 different countries to present conference plenary sessions and workshops for probation officers and others who work with offenders.
