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Desistance is one of the big news stories of the criminological world. Research suggests that, as ‘offenders’ turn their backs on crime, they often change their identities as well as their behaviour. Yet we know much less about how reforming or transforming identity might be affected by gender, age or ethnicity. This book focuses on diversity and showcases research from a wide range of authors in the field. It considers the similarities and differences between desisting from crime and recovering from addiction. Taking the desistance and recovery debates in unfamiliar directions, it examines the experiences of change for individuals seeking healthier and more successful futures.

Although it is possible to trace a recent history of far reaching change in probation, the criminal justice system, and penal policy since the 1980s, it is of specific interest to excavate the period from 1997 to 2015. This is because new labour 1997-2010 modernised the criminal justice domain, followed by the era of coalition government that imposed profound transformations in the form of the rehabilitation revolution. The latter culminated in a proportion of probation work being privatised following the creation of 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies. This updated, revised, and largely re-written book constructs an extended theoretical grid to develop a more sophisticated and critical analysis of modernising incursions and transformational traumas under the politico-economic conditions of neoliberal capitalism. Accordingly, in 6 substantive chapters, the book makes an original and timely contribution to theoretical excavation and research in the criminal justice system. To achieve this objective, the book has been expanded to accommodate theoretical insights elicited from Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Foucault, Lacan and Žižek. Additionally, there is a distinctive religious and personalist tradition of considerable longevity that must be factored into this analysis. This is facilitated by refining the conceptual device of moral economy. A major strength of this revised and updated text is the refined theoretical framework to excavate a recent history of politically imposed modernisation and transformation, largely associated with the reconstruction of the probation system.

Over the last few decades, public opinion has been traumatised by revelations of child abuse on a mass scale. It has become the major human rights story of the 21^st century in Western society. This ground-breaking book explores the relationship between the media, child abuse and shifting adult-child power relations which, in Western countries, has spawned an ever expanding range of laws, policies and procedures introduced to address the ‘explosion’ of interest in the issue of child abuse. Revelations of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland – and its ‘cover-up’ by Church authorities – have given rise to one of the greatest institutional scandals of modern history. Through in-depth analysis of 20 years of media representation of the issue, this book draws significant insights on the media’s influence and its impact on civil society. Highly topical and of interest and relevance to lecturers and researchers in the area of childhood studies, sociology of childhood, child protection and social work, social and public policy and human rights, as well as policymakers, this book provides an important contribution to the international debate about child abuse as reflected to the public through the power of the media.

This edited book considers the values both implicit and explicit in criminology and criminal justice. Taking Becker’s influential article “Whose Side Are We On?” (1967) as a starting point, the book debates issues concerning sociological enquiry about deviancy and crime which, by its very nature, cannot ever be entirely neutral or objective: “We must always look at the matter from someone’s point of view. The scientist who proposes to understand society must, as Mead long ago pointed out, get into the situation enough to have a perspective on it…..We can never avoid taking sides.” Becker, 1967: 245). However, the ’sides’ that are taken in theorising and researching crime and in criminal justice practice are often inadequately acknowledged, frequently reflecting dominant thinking and discourses. This book arises from our perceptions that values and values-talk has been submerged by the instrumental demands of administrative criminology and managerial practices in both higher education and criminal justice system. The chapters open debate about crime, criminology and criminal justice from a broad spectrum of perspectives and, in so doing, poses key questions about policy, values and what is/what should be more valued.

The rise in a dominant risk paradigm focusing on public protection in criminal justice has seen the increased use of coercion to access treatment for people with substance misuse and mental health problems. This book explores the notions of risk and rehabilitation within the practice of court orders, and contextualises them within a comparative literature and research base. This timely book discusses these problems, highlighting criminal justice practice in relation to risk and rehabilitation. It will make crucial reading for academics and policy makers in criminology and criminal justice and those working with mental health/welfare groups.

This is the first book in the UK or US to set on record the recent cultural phenomenon of the use of certain dog breeds - both legal and illegal - to ‘convey status’ upon their owners. Such dogs are easily visible on social housing estates throughout the UK and in projects in the USA and provide acquired authority, respect, power and control. However they are increasingly linked to urban street gangs as ‘Weapon Dogs’ and present a danger to the ordinary public especially those using parks and open spaces with increased injuries being presented at UK hospitals. Though initially slow to react, local and statutory authorities are now seeking to address the issue through action plans and interventions. Written in a fresh, engaging and accessible style, this unique book contextualizes the phenomenon in terms of sociology, criminology and public policy. It considers a complex mix of urban and social deprivation, social control of public space and the influence of contemporary media imagery and ‘gangsta’ culture. It will make essential reading for academics and policy makers in criminology and criminal justice and those working with animal rights/animal welfare groups.

This book represents the first full-length critical and interdisciplinary assessment of Loïc Wacquant's work in English. Wacquant's challenging critique of the neo-liberal government of crime and the punitive culture has recently shaken mainstream criminology to its foundations. In a bold political analysis he describes how the US-led revolution in law and order has dismantled the welfare state, replacing it with a disciplinary and penal state. Wacquant's analysis details the spread of neo-liberal crime control measures and the underpinning ‘pornographic’ discourses of crime across the developed world, although critics have questioned the extent to which this model of criminal justice really is gaining the worldwide dominance alleged. Written by criminologists and policy analysts, the book offers a critical but constructive application of Wacquant's ideas. The contributors welcome the opportunity presented by Wacquant's work to re-engage with a radical politics of law and order, criminalisation and marginality, whilst raising issues of gender, resistance, conflict and history which, they argue, help to enrich and further develop Wacquant's analyses and the discipline of criminology itself. The book concludes with a chapter from Professor Wacquant responding to the commentaries upon his work. It fills an important gap in the existing literature and will be exciting reading for academics and students of criminology, social policy and the social sciences more broadly.

Successive governments have promised to reform criminal justice in England and Wales, and to make it more efficient and more effective in preventing and reducing crime. They have introduced a continuous series of legislative and administrative reforms and massive increases in expenditure. And yet — especially following the August 2011 riots — there is still a recurring sense of uncertainty about the direction that any further reforms should take. This book reviews the policies which governments have adopted over the last thirty years; the more recent developments in sentencing, policing, community sentences, prisons and the governance of criminal justice; and the lessons that can be learned from them. It offers a principled framework for the development of policy, legislation and practice, arguing with examples for an approach that is focused first on people and their capacities, situations and relationships, and on treating them with humanity and respect, and only then on reforming institutions, structures and systems. The book makes suggestions for ways in which opposing views and attitudes might be more often reconciled, based on promoting procedural justice and legitimacy; fostering human decency and civility; and enabling prevention, restoration and desistance from crime. The book brings together contrasting but complementary academic and public service perspectives, and links criminal justice with wider issues of government and public administration.

The world of the chief police officer is not clearly understood, even by those within policing, or by those who have formal and political oversight of police command. The police themselves argue that the only way to understand strategic command in the police is to do it, but that cannot be sustained as an argument for ignorance. The author of this book, with a background in governance and policing, had privileged access to this shadowy elite, and on the basis of confidential one-to-one interviews, obtained the frank and sometimes controversial, invariably robust views of serving chief police officers. The book, often using the chief officers' own words but also providing critical analysis of a high order, examines how chief police officers are selected, groomed, assessed and appointed. The book explores their views on those who hold them to account, what they think of the challenges of ‘post-modern’ policing, of each other and of the system they command. It takes them into uncomfortable areas such as work-life balance and whether they are privately uneasy about what they do, what they want policing to be and how future generations will be policed.