Handbook of Probation

This handbook provides a comprehensive, authorative and up-to-date source of information and analysis about all aspects of the work of the Probation Service in the UK - an essential text for anybody working in probation, studying the subject as part of a wider criminology or criminal justice course, or training for it. 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 - in England and Wales - part of the broader National Offender Management Service.The contributors to this book explore both the history and current debate regarding the nature of the Probation Service, and in doing so provide an account of how we have reached the present stage and, with an eye to the future, set out what might be lost and found in any new arrangements. Chapters in the book address probation issues in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales.The book also addresses a range of key current issues such as ways of responding to 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. The contributors are drawn from leading academics and practitioners in the field, drawing upon the best expertise available.

Lorine Gelsthorpe is Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Director of the Mphil Programme in Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Pembroke College. Rod Morgan is Professor Emeritus at Bristol University and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Until February 2007 he was Chairman of the youth Justice Board and, prior to that, HM Chief Inspector of the Probation Service for England and Wales.