Probation and Politics

Maurice Vanstone worked in the probation service for 27 years and is currently Emeritus Professor of Criminology at Swansea University, Wales. His research and writing has focused mainly on probation-related topics, in particular, the effectiveness of community sentences, and the history of probation.Philip Priestley has been a probation officer and academic. He helped pioneer services to victims, mediation, and probation day-centres as alternatives to prison. Has written on prison history, and developed cognitive-behavioural programmes, shown to reduce re-offending by up to 25%; which have been used in five countries.

• Chapter 1. Women and Probation.- Chapter 2. Where Did It All Go Wrong? .- Chapter 3. Social Justice, Human Rights and the Values of Probation .-Chapter 4. Values in Probation With People Who Commit Sex Crimes.-Chapter 5. What Probation Has Been and What It Could Become.-Chapter 6. Probation.-Chapter 7. Bridging and Broking.-Chapter 8. Probation, Privatisation, and Perceptions of Risk.-Chapter 9. The Nature of Probation Practice.-Chapter 10. The Rise of Risk in Probation Work.-Chapter 11. Alarms & Excursions.-Chapter 12. Effective Probation in England and Wales? .-Chapter 13. Forty Years and Counting.-Chapter 14. Probation.-Chapter 15. A Future for Evidence-based Do-gooding? .-Chapter 16. Probation Duty and the Re-moralisation of Criminal Justice .-Chapter 17. Probation in the Genes?

“This volume provides a uniquely honest insight into the research that has been conducted in the field of probation over the last 40 years and thus serves as a valuable body of work that can be used by anyone, specialist or otherwise, to understand what probation is all about and what it might become.” (Jake Phillips, The British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 59 (2), March, 2019)