Working with Offenders: Issues, Contexts and Outcomes(New Directions in Social Work series)

About the Book

This text reflects recent changes in the training of probation and social workers. It addresses issues of knowledge, skills and practice as well as contemporary social issues. It also appraises policies and professional requirements critically. The book is divided into three sections: issues which inform practice - training skills and competencies, anti-discriminatory practice, autonomy and accountability, masculinity and the causes of crime; the contexts in which working with offenders takes place - probation boards; pre-sentence reports, community penalties, prison and the community; the outcomes of good practice - partnerships against crime and effectiveness and evaluation of crime prevention.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - Tim May and Antony A Vass The Shifting Sands of Working with Offenders PART ONE: ISSUES Probation Training - Mike Nellis The Links with Social Work The Essential Skills of Probation Work - Gwyneth Boswell Discrimination and Anti-Discrimination in Probation - David Denney Values in Context - Ellis Finkelstein Quality Assurance, Autonomy and Accountability Masculinity, the Probation Service and the Causes of Offending Behaviour - Karen Buckley PART TWO: CONTEXTS The Role of Probation Committees in Policing the Development of the Probation Service - Simon Holdaway Pre-Sentence Reports - David Smith Community Penalties - Antony A Vass The Politics of Punishment The Transition from Prison to Community - Brian Williams PART THREE: OUTCOMES New Partnerships in Work with Offenders and Crime Prevention Work - Bob Broad Crime Prevention - Daniel Gilling Evaluating Probation - Peter Raynor The Rehabilitation of Effectiveness

About the Author :
Tim May originally trained and worked as an agricultural engineer. After his PhD (1990), he was appointed to a lectureship at Plymouth (1989-95) and then moved to the University of Durham (1995-99) and was appointed at Salford in 1999. He became Director of the Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures in 2001. He is currently Professor of Social Science Methodology and Director of Research at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. He has held research grants from many sources including: ESRC; EPSRC; AHRC; Mistra (Swedish Environmental Research Foundation; Regional Development Agencies; Core Cities Group; Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Higher Education Funding Council; Local Government Management Board; Economic and Social Research Council; Manchester City Council; the CONTACT group of the four Greater Manchester Universities and the NHS.   In addition to the books and journals listed below, Tim May has contributed chapters to the following publications:   May, T. and Perry, B. 2013 ‘Reflexivity and Data Analysis’. In Flick, U. (ed). Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. London: SAGE.   May, T. 2013 ‘Reflexivity’. In Kaldis, B. (ed). Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences. London: SAGE.   May, T. and Williams, M. 2010 ‘Commitment and Investigation in Knowing the Social World’. In Olsen, W. (ed). Realist Methodology, Volume 1: Practical Realist Ontology. London: SAGE.   May, T. and Powell, J. 2007 ‘Michel Foucault’. In Edwards, T. (ed). Cultural Theory: Classical and Contemporary Positions. London: SAGE. May, T 2006 ‘Critical Theory’. In Booth, C. and Harrington, J (eds). Developing Business Knowledge. UWE/ SAGE.   May, T. 2005 ‘Reflexivity and Sociological Practice’. In Williams, M. (ed). The Philosophical Foundations of Social Research, Volume 3: Social Reality and the Social Context of Social Research. London: SAGE.   May, T. 2004 ‘Poststructuralism’, ‘Critical Theory’, ‘Postempiricism’. In Bryman, A., Lewis-Beck, M. and Futing Liao, T. (eds). Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. May, T. 2002 ‘The Discontented Epoch: Freedom and Security in Bauman’s Postmodernity′. In Beilharz, P. (ed). Zygmunt Bauman: 4 Volumes. Volume 3, ‘The Postmodern’. London: SAGE.

Review :
`As a practitioner I found it helpful and illuminating to find all the key debates and issues, together with some summaries available research and evidence, in one volume′ - Youth and Policy

`A recurrent theme is the increasing centralisation of probation policy, increasing managerialism and the implications thereof for professional autonomy and accountability.... In conveying clearly the context of contemporary probation practice, this book will be of particular value to students on courses which themselves, ironically, have fallen victim to centralised initiatives that deny the relevance of social work values and skills to work with offenders′ - Community Care