Prisons and Punishment

Key Issues in Corrections critically analyzes the most important challenges affecting the correctional system in the USA, offering a no-nonsense explanation of the problems of correctional officers, correctional managers, prisoners, and the public.

Providing a comprehensive account of prison populations worldwide, this new work links prison statistics from the last 15 years with considerations of how prisons and prison populations are managed. It is a major contribution to the knowledge of those currently debating prisons and the use of imprisonment.

This is the first single authored book to trace the emergence of Convict Criminology and explore its relevance beyond the USA to the UK and other parts of Europe. It presents uniquely reflexive scholarship combining personal experience with critical perspectives on contemporary penology, focussing explicitly on men.

This book re-assesses the benefits and failures of competition, how public and private prisons compare, the impact of competition on the public sector’s performance, and how well Government has managed this ‘quasi-market’.

This topical book looks at the attitudes of probation practitioners and managers to the philosophy, values, and practicalities of the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda. It provides unique insights into the values, attitudes and beliefs of probation staff and their delivery of services.

This engaging book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close.

This timely book provides a vivid description of what it is like to attend court as a victim, a witness or a defendant; the interplay between the different players in the courtroom; and the extent to which the court process is viewed as legitimate by those involved in it.

Lord Carter's "Review of Prisons" (2007), proposed the construction of vast 'Titan' prisons to deal with the problem of prison overcrowding, the establishment of a Sentencing Commission for keeping judicial demand for prison places in line with supply, and further use of the private sector. This book is a response to these controversial proposals.