Rethinking What Works with Offenders: Probation, Social Context and Desistance from Crime

Rethinking What Works with Offenders, published twenty years ago, made a significant contribution to criminological knowledge on offender desistance and the probation service's impact. It used self-reported data and reconceptualized probation outcomes in terms of degrees of success. The Twentieth Anniversary edition includes a new Foreword, a new chapter, and four new commentaries, reflecting on the book's importance and legacy. It remains essential reading for anyone professionally concerned with probation.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 334 pages
Publication date: 27 May 2024
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Rethinking What Works with Offenders, published twenty years ago, made a significant contribution to criminological knowledge on why people stopped offending and the impact of the probation service on the desistance process. Unlike other studies that relied on official conviction data, it used self-reported data, including interviews with men and women on probation and their supervising Probation Officers. This approach reconceptualized probation outcomes in terms of degrees of success rather than as successful or unsuccessful and offered important policy implications of these conclusions. The Twentieth Anniversary edition of the book includes a new Foreword by Shadd Maruna and Fergus McNeill, which locates the book historically and assesses its continued importance to Criminology. It also includes a new chapter by the author reporting on the key findings of follow-up interviews in 2004 and 2010-12, reflecting on key developments in the field and developing a theory of assisted desistance. Furthermore, it features four new commentaries from Mark Halsey, Isabelle F.-Dufour, Martine Herzog-Evans, and José Cid, reflecting on the importance and legacy of the book. This book presents an important and challenging range of findings on what works in probation and with offenders and remains essential reading for anybody professionally concerned with the present and future of probation.

Weight: 512g
Dimension: 154 x 235 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367699000