No description available.

No description available.

This thesis will be submitted in Probation's centenary year. The Probation Service is an organisation that has undergone a tremendous journey of change and transition since its inception as a morally-underpinned voluntary body whose members sought to save the souls of poor unfortunates appearing before the courts. The thesis provides a critical history of probation practice, examining the development of practice during its 100 years. The reader is invited to share something of probation's journey of transition. The transition is considered as it has been experienced by the author herself and also by fifteen long-serving probation officers with whom she has conducted qualitative interviews. All sixteen people were trained in what is termed a 'clinical mode' of practice in which probation officers were able to practice as social workers, employing social work values embodying an ethic of care. The practice environment has changed in the decades since they trained into what is termed a 'punitive managerial mode' in which the ethic of care has been overshadowed by the ethic of justice. The essence of the study is an examination of these practitioners' experiences and how they respond to their changing circumstances. Experienced practitioners with well established skills of reflection and critical thinking, the study's participants do not readily adopt a strictly prescribed form of practice in which a technical solution is routinely applied to groups or individuals. Instead they develop a form of subjectivity in which they continue to view themselves as social workers. They are able to take a critical position and sustain their resistance to a form of practice which ignores the social context of offenders' lives. A view of practice as a practical-moral activity emerges; it is a form of human action based on relationships between the helper and the helped, in which decision making is fluid and reflexive, and in which solutions to problems are created reflexively in a positive working relationship between practitioner and client. Professional practice involving a relationship between human beings is not viewed as something that can be reduced to a straightforward application of technique. Practice in this formulation has a moral character which is suffused with judgement and reflection upon the unique and particular circumstances of the individual to be helped, with an intention to do good. It involves not only an understanding of the circumstances of the helped person, but self knowledge on the part of the helper that is developed with each encounter. The study concludes with an examination of the possibilities for a form of practice which encompasses both justice and care, based upon links between the approach suggested here and recent work on constructive practice with offenders and the desistance paradigm of offender management.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Hypotheses: Suicide was expected to be more likely amongst released prisoners than the general population. Risk factors would include being on remand, charged or convicted with a violent offence, being released from a local prison, having had mental health problems, misused alcohol/substances, a history of suicidal behaviour, and a poor level of post-release engagement with community services. Method: This case-control study identified all suicides and probable suicides between 2000 and 2002, committed by offenders within 12 months of their release from prison in England and Wales. One matched control was recruited for each case. Suicide rates per 100,000 person-years were compared with rates in the general population using the indirectly age-standardised mortality ratio. Information on case and controls was obtained from various official databases and locally held personal records. Logistic regression modelling was used to identify key factors related with an increased risk of post-release suicide. Findings: Out of 256,920 recently released prisoners, 384 offenders committed suicide within a year of release from prison, producing a suicide rate of 150 per 100,000 person-years. Seventy nine (21%) suicides occurred within the first 28 days after release. Released males were 8 times and females 36 times more likely to commit suicide than expected in the general population. Individuals with a history of alcohol misuse, a history of self harm and a psychiatric diagnosis were identified as at greatest risk of post-release suicide. Local prisons were associated with a 2-fold increase in offenders' risk of post-release suicide and suicides were more likely amongst those in contact with mental health services. Interpretation: Recently released prisoners are at a much greater risk of suicide than the general population, especially in the first few weeks after release. The risk of suicides in recently released prisoners is approaching that observed in discharged psychiatric patients. A shared responsibility lies with the prison, probation, health and social services to develop more collaborative practices in providing services for this at-risk group.