Handbook of Probation

This Handbook provides a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date source of information and analysis about all aspects of the work of the Probation Service. It takes full account of the many changes that the Probation Service has undergone over the last few years, and is currently undergoing as probation becomes part of the broader National Offender Management Service. Contributors to the book are drawn from leading academics and practitioners in the field, drawing upon the best expertise available. Running through the book is a concern with a range of key current issues such as addressing the diversity of offenders and creating effective links with other criminal justice agencies, and it includes perspectives from both probation service staff and from offenders and victims. This book is an essential text for practitioners, trainees and students of probation and those studying it as part of a wider criminology or criminal justice course.

Table of Contents:
Preface by (Chief Executive, NOMS) Introduction Part 1: The Story of Probation in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland Introduction 1. Humanising justice: the English Probation Service up to 1972 2. Towards a correctional service 3. Probation, governance and accountability 4. The Probation Service as Part of NOMS in England and Wales: fit for purpose? 5. Probation in Scotland: past, present and future 6. Probation, the state and community 'delivering probation services in Northern Ireland Part 2: Probation Services - Impact, Prospects and Potential in Everyday Practice Introduction 7. Services before trial and sentence:achievement, decline and potential 8. Assessment, supervision and intervention: fundamental practice in probation9. Sentencing, community penalties and the role of the Probation Service 10. Youth justice 11. Dealing with diversity in probation 12. Prolific/persistent offenders and desistance 13. High-risk offenders and public protection 14. The resettlement of ex-prisoners Part 3: What Works in Probation? Introduction 15. Effectiveness: who counts what? 16. Past, present and future sentences: what do we know about their effectiveness? 17. Probation values and human rights 18. Working for and with victims of crime 19. Partnerships in probation 20. Community penalties, sentencers, the media and public opinion

About the Author :
Loraine Gelsthorpe is Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Director of the MPhil Programme in Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge; she is also a Fellow of Pembroke College. Rod Morgan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bristol and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Until February 2007 he was Chairman of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and prior to that, HM Chief Inspector of Probation for England and Wales.

Review :
'The year 2007 marks the centenary of the statutory inauguration of the probation service in England and Wales, but it also sees the presentation to Parliament of a Bill that will - in the name of contestability - radically alter the organizational arrangements for delivering the traditional tasks of the service. In this turbulent context, th