Willan Publishing

Rethinking What Works with Offenders

Probation, social context and desistance from crime

Stephen Farrall (Sheffield University)


Foreword by Christine Knott (Chief Officer, Greater Manchester Probation Area)
'a fascinating and ambitious book which reports on a major study of offenders' experience of probation orders' - Peter Raynor, Vista, Spring 03
Rethinking What Works with Offenders  

This important and original new book reports on a major investigation of the outcomes of probation supervision, is concerned with the key question of what works in probation, and comes at an important moment of change and development for the probation service in the UK. Unlike previous studies which have relied mostly on official data, this book makes use of over 200 interviews with men and women on probation, and their supervising Probation Officers.

Rethinking What Works with Offenders has the following objectives:
  • to understand probation work from the perspectives of those who deliver it and those to whom it is delivered
  • to study probation intervention as a whole (in particular the probation order) rather than specific aspects
  • to locate probation work in the wider social contexts of those on probation
  • to analyse how probation works, and to reconceptualise probation outcomes in terms of degrees of success rather than as 'successful' or 'unsuccessful'
  • to assess the policy implications of these conclusions
This book presents an important and challenging range of findings on 'what works' in probation and with offenders, and will be essential reading for anybody professionally concerned with the present and future of probation.
  • raises central issues at a critical time for the reorganised National Probation Service
  • based on extensive research, including 200+ interviews
  • essential reading for anybody interested in 'what works' in probation

Contents
Foreword by Christine Knott (Chief Officer, Greater Manchester Probation Area)
Introduction.
Part 1 Introduction
1 Probation, social context and desistance from crime: introducing the agenda
2 Realism, criminal careers and complexity
3 The Study
Part 2 Probation, motivation and social contexts
4 Defining 'success'
5 The focus of probation
6 Resolving obstacles: the role of probation supervision
7 Motivation and probation
8 Probation work: content and context
9 Motivation, changing contexts and probation supervision
Part 3 Persistance and desistance
10 Desistance, change and probation supervision
11 The factors associated with offending
Part 4 Conclusions
12 Probation, social context and desistance from crime: developing the agenda
Index




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