Drawn from top criminologists in the US and UK, each of the contributors
applies criminological theory to the question of how best to reintegrate
ex-offenders into the community, giving voice to the ex prisoner in a way that
is rarely heard in criminological research or policy debates around
resettlement.The issue of resettling ex prisoners and ex offenders into the community
has become an increasingly pressing one on both sides of the Atlantic. In the
USA the Attorney General has identified the issue as "one of the most pressing
problems we face as a nation" in view of the massive prison population and the
rapid increase in rates of incarceration, while in the UK it has been become an
increasingly important issue for similar reasons, and the subject of recent
reports by HM Inspectorate of Prisons and HM Inspectorate of Probation, as well
as from the Social Exclusion Unit of the Home Office.; Yet this issue has not been well served by the criminological literature,
and the new policies and programmes that have been set up to address the
problem have not been well grounded in criminological thinking. This book seeks
to address the important set of issues involved by bringing together the best
of recent thinking and research into desistance from crime, drawing upon
research in both the UK and the US, and with a distinct focus on how this might
impact upon the design and implementation of ex-offender reintegration
policy.; The contributors are drawn from top criminologists in the US and the UK,
each of them applies criminological theory to the question of how best to
reintegrate ex-offenders, giving voice to the ex prisoner in a way that is
rarely heard in criminological research or policy debates around
resettlement.
