As the UK and many other western societies face up to the consequences of a rapidly increasing prison population, so the search for alternative approaches to punishment and dealing with offenders has become an increasingly urgent priority for government policy and society as a whole.
This book reports the results of the research programme commissioned by the Coulsfield Inquiry into Alternatives to Prison, which was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn 'Rethinking Crime and Punishment' initiative. It is written by leading authorities in the field, and provides a comprehensive, authoritative and wide-ranging review of the range of issues associated with the use of noncustodial sanctions, examining experiences in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales.
Preface 1. How Did We Get Here? The Editors 2. Trends in Crime, Victimisation and Punishment, Chris Lewis 3. Empirical Research Relevant to Sentencing Frameworks, Anthony Bottoms 4. Public Opinion and Community Penalties, Shadd Maruna and Anna King 5. Punishment as Communication, Sue Rex 6. Diversionary and Nonsupervisory Approaches to Dealing with Offenders, George Mair 7. Reparative and Restorative Approaches, Gill McIvor 8. Rehabilitative and Reintegrative Approaches, Peter Raynor 9. Electronic Monitoring and the Community Supervision of Offenders, Mike Nellis 10. Dealing with Substance-misusing Offenders in the Community, Judith Rumgay 11. Intensive Projects for Prolific/Persistent Offenders, Anne Worrall and Rob C. Mawby 12. What Guides Sentencing Decisions? Martin Wasik 13. Sentence Management, Gwen Robinson and James Dignan 14. Dimensions of Difference, Hazel Kemshall, Rob Canton and Roy Bailey 15. Attitudes to Punishment in Two High-crime Communities, Anthony Bottoms and Andrew Wilson 16. Pulling some threads together, The Editors
Biography
Anthony Bottoms, Sue Rex, Gwen Robinson
'Alternatives to Prison: options for an insecure society will prove to be a quite valuable title in the field of criminology, and specifically it will come to be seen as an invaluable text in the domain of penology and sentencing. Not only have the editors drawn a strong indictment of the multiple drawbacks to imprisonment save in the cases of violent offences or offenders, they have done so in a way that is sensitive to and responsive to the needs of a collectivity that believes itself to be 'insecure', whatever may be the true state of affairs, at least as may be judged by statistics and surveys'. – Gilles Renaud, Ontario Court of Justice, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice