Comment

No wrong directions

I started to read a timely and accessible contribution to the challenges facing prisoners returning to there communities, On the Outside, a book with an emphasis on community reintegration beyond individual recidivism.

14 December 2023
Comment

Remembering Mike Guilfoyle

Mike Guilfoyle, a long-standing friend of the Centre for Crime and Justice, died peacefully at home on 19 November, after a long battle with cancer.

30 November 2023
Comment

The street vibe

It might seem somewhat counter-intuitive in light of my twenty years as a probation officer to be promoting a book by Vincent Schiraldi the former Probation Commissioner of New York City.

19 November 2023
Comment

You remind me of Valjean

Community-based supervision is relatively invisible, in the popular imagine, compared with prison.

19 October 2023
Comment

In the interests of justice

Making a positive and enduring difference in the lives of those coming before the courts requires a commitment to the demands of procedural justice.

22 September 2023
Comment

Yer never going to change me

Every so often I read a book on criminal justice that leaves an abiding impression for its originality, compassionate tone and incisive range of critical reflections.

22 August 2023
Comment

Under the influence

Waiting to Inhale, chronicling the impact of the US ‘War on Drugs’ on black, brown and Indigenous American people, offers a powerful vision for redemptive policy measures that might offer new ways of securing racial and social justice redress.

24 May 2023
Comment

Was that because you cared for me?

Jamie Peacock’s incisive and accessible book, Working the Phones, draws on his experience of working undercover in a call centre to uncover some of the alienating features of front-line workers undertaking low-paid and high-stress work.

21 April 2023
Comment

What are you trying to find out?

One day, I was hastily enlisted to appear on a TV News channel on behalf of the probation union, Napo, as a practitioner to talk about potential cuts to offending behaviour programmes in London.

24 March 2023
Comment

Am I the person I was always meant to be?

It is always gratifying to pick up an accessible criminology book offering a fresh ethnographic approach based on hard-earned biographical insights into some of the often overlooked ambiguities of desistance.

24 February 2023