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 Servicebased on extensive research, including 200+ interviewsessential 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

Farrall, Stephen