Offenders

Policy development and implementation has a pivotal role in the youth justice system, with a profound impact upon professionals and the children they work with. Presenting original research on a variety of stakeholder policy-makers in England and Wales, this book is key reading for researchers and practitioners responding to youth offending.

‘Desistance’ - understanding how people move away from offending – has become a significant policy focus in recent years, with desistance thinking transplanted from the adult to the youth justice system in England and Wales. This book is the first to critique this approach to justice-involved children.

This book is the first to organize and explain current scholarship on convict criminology, corrections and criminal justice in an accessible manner. From activism to the emergence of undergraduate programmes in prisons, it provides a clear guide to the complexities of the field.

For the first time, this book offers qualitative research on the lives and social relationships of older imprisoned women. In-depth interviews with 29 female prisoners in the south-eastern United States show that older women both engage in generative behaviours, or 'giving back', in prison and also wish to do so upon their release.

Whereas crime more generally has fallen over the last 20 years, levels of serious youth violence remain high. This book explores the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and serious youth violence and advocates for a more psychosocial approach to trauma-informed policy and practice within the youth justice system.

Shedding light on the challenges and experiences of women and families within the criminal justice system, this book considers issues of intersectionality, violence and gender. Accessible to both academics and practitioners and with real-world policy recommendations, this collection demonstrates how positive change can be achieved.

With fascinating ethnographic and interview data, James Alexander explores the disappearance of localised relationships and the rise in youth violence in a South London housing estate. Evaluating the effectiveness of youth work programmes, he considers the impact of the gradual move from neighbourly to professional support for young people.

Combining a compulsive read with rigorous academic analysis, this book tells the real-life stories of drug dealers involved in county lines networks. This myth-busting, accessible book offers a new way of thinking about drug crime prevention, intervention and enforcement.

Sports-based crime prevention programmes are increasingly popular world-wide but until now there has been very little research on their effectiveness. The authors analyse successful Positive Youth Development practices and their effectiveness in decreasing the risk of criminal involvement, giving recommendations for future policy and practice.

Youth violence dominates headlines and politicians’ attention and many organisations invest considerable resources in an attempt to reduce it. This book examines how inequality and social harms drive such violence and highlights key future goals for policymakers, researchers and practitioners.

Challenging concepts and practices of rehabilitation, this text draws on criminology, philosophy and theology to develop a theory of ‘redemptive criminology’ that could revolutionise the rehabilitation system. It offers new insights into punishment and retribution and explores the connections between victims, perpetrators and the community.

From the trials of Oscar Pistorius to O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, this innovative book provides a critical review of 11 high profile criminal cases. It delivers an accessible examination of the sociological and psychological processes underpinning the construction of guilt and innocence in criminal trials, the media and wider society.