1st Edition

The Enforcement of Offender Supervision in Europe Understanding Breach Processes

Edited By Miranda Boone, Niamh Maguire Copyright 2018
    292 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    292 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book provides a comparative analysis of the process of breach across ten different European jurisdictions by identifying and elaborating a number of key analytical themes through which the different systems can be compared and evaluated. It is informed by and hopes to advance the research activities of the COST Action IS1106 on Offender Supervision in Europe, particularly the Action’s work on developing new comparative methodologies to examine the process of decision-making involved in the breaching of offenders for non-compliance.

    This volume consists of country chapters and thematic chapters. Analyses are based on exhaustive reviews of the literature available in each jurisdiction as well as the results of an empirical pilot study to provide a unique and valuable insight into current practice as well as enhancing our understanding of the contingencies and vagaries of the processes of breach as they exist in both civil and common law European jurisdictions. The key themes and emerging concerns that are explored include: the roles and responsibilities of the different actors involved in the breach process; the degree and nature of discretion exercised by decision-makers; and legitimacy, due process and procedural requirements of breach processes both from a pan-European and from a comparative perspective.

    This book will be of interest to criminal lawyers and criminologists, policy makers, criminal justice practitioners, probation workers and students of criminal justice studies across Europe. Comparative insight into the decision-making processes of breach across Europe will also be of interest to American, Canadian and Australian audiences seeking comparisons with their own systems.

    PART A

    1. Introduction: Comparing breach processes: Aims, concepts, methodology and figures (Miranda M. Boone and Niamh Maguire)

    2. Fairness issues in the breach process: European perspectives (Christine Morgenstern, Consuelo Murillos and Luisa Ravagnani)

    3. Parties, roles and responsibilities (Ester Blay, Miranda M. Boone and Ineke Pruin)

    4. Discretion and professionalism in a breach context (Kristel Beyens and Anders Persson)

    5. Legitimacy, fairness and justice in breach processes: Comparative perspectives (Anthea Hucklesby, Niamh Maguire, Maria Anagnostaki and Jose Cid)

    6. Conclusion: Understanding breach processes: Major themes, insights and questions for the future (Niamh Maguire and Miranda M. Boone)

    PART B

    7. Breach of work penalties and conditional release in Belgium (Kristel Beyens and Veerle Scheirs)

    8. Non-compliance and the breach process in England and Wales (Anthea Hucklesby)

    9. Revocation and recall in Germany: Legal structures and first insights into decision-making processes (Ineke Pruin)

    10. Breach processes and community punishment in Greece (Maria Anagnostaki)

    11. Non-compliance and breach processes in the context of community service orders and early release: The Republic of Ireland (Niamh Maguire)

    12. Breach Process in the Context of Alternative Measures in Italy (Luisa Ravagnani, Alessandra Zaniboni and Nicoletta Policek)

    13. Breach of community punishment in Lithuania (Alfredas Laurinavičius and Laura Ustinavičiūtė)

    14. Revocation and recall in the Netherlands (Miranda M. Boone and Maaike M. Beckmann)

    15. Breach procedure, revocation and recall in Spain (Ester Blay, Jose Cid and Consuelo Murillo)

    16. Breach Processes in Sweden (Anders Persson)

    Biography

    Miranda Boone is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Until May 2017 she worked as a Professor of Penology and Penitentiary Law at the University of Groningen and as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Law at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. She was co-chair of the Working Group on Decision-Making of the COST Action IS1106 on Offender Supervision in Europe (2012–2016)

    Niamh Maguire is a Lecturer in Criminology at Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland. She is a founding member of the ESC Working group on Sentencing and Penal Decision and a member of the ESC Working Group on Community Sanctions and Measures. Niamh was co-chair of the Working Group on Decision-Making of the COST Action IS1106 on Offender Supervision in Europe (2012–2016).

    "This remarkable volume provides the first sustained attempt to explore decision-making about compliance and enforcement in comparative context. Given the crucial role that these issues play in driving – or restraining – the expansion of penal control, the work could hardly be more timely or more important. By helping us explore how these issues are differently constructed, understood and addressed in a wide range of different jurisdictions, this book provides a valuable resource for scholars and reformers alike."

    - Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work, University of Glasgow, UK

    "The process of breach in community supervision is by far the most important criminological issue that you never read about. Done correctly, the breach process can imbue supervision with legitimacy, done incorrectly it can become a backdoor into mass incarceration. Boone and Maguire’s unique and invaluable collection of studies demonstrates the vast variety in between with a one-of-a-kind survey across Europe. An essential contribution to knowledge in criminology."

    - Shadd Maruna, Professor of Criminology, University of Manchester, UK, and author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives

    "Breach proceedings are part of the hidden ‘backdoor’ side of sentencing, too long ignored by academics. This book adds considerably to the literature by acknowledging the difficulties of analysis, the theoretical complexity and the terminological challenges of European comparisons. Qualitative, thematic and collaborative, this book provides an invaluable guide to those who seek to make sense of enforcement decisions, but also to those who come later - future researchers will find this an exciting and reliable foundation on which to build future work."

    - Professor Nicola Padfield, University of Cambridge, UK

    "While researchers world-wide have rightly focused attention on the more visible legal and cultural practices driving imprisonment, the increasingly significant role of the enforcement of offender supervision has gone almost unnoticed. In fact, as this volume demonstrates, the study of ‘breach processes’ unearths urgent normative and empirical questions, which will occupy researchers for generations to come. With contributions from some of Europe’s leading scholars, this volume is set to become landmark in the normative and empirical study of practices which have, perhaps for too long, operated under the radar."

    - Professor Cyrus Tata, FRSA, Strathclyde University, UK