Comment
Ambiguous endings to a supervisory experience
Although it now seems like a distant reflection, I was minded to recall working with Paola (not her real name) whilst reading an impressively moving...
News
Call for delay to government probation plans
Our Director, Richard Garside, is one of eight signatories on a letter to the Justice Secretary, David Gauke, calling for him to 'pause and reconsider' the government's plans re-let probation contracts to private companies.
The call comes in the wake of a damning National Audit Office report last week, which concluded that the Ministry of Justice 'should pause and reflect on whether its propsed approach is both deliverable and consistent with its strategic aims for the probation system'.
The seven...
Comment
Comment
Post-Soviet economic decline, power vacuums, and psychiatric disturbance
Whilst working in a forensic psychology service with the probation service, I remember seeing a referral in my in-tray marked ‘urgent’. When delving into the file it turned out to be the file of...
Comment
News
Joint letter in The Observer to David Gauke
The Centre's director, Richard Garside, is co-signatory of a letter to Minister of Justice David Gauke.
The letter, mentioned in the weekend's Observer, expresses concern over the decision to re-let Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts. ...
Comment
Baby steps: Camilla's story
I recently returned to re-reading Edward Bunker's visceral and uncompromisingly powerful memoir of his life, in and out of prison, ...
Comment
Born under a bad sign
A short time ago, I read Fergus McNeill's latest opus, Pervasive Punishment: Making...
Comment
Automation, violence, and mental illness: The rise of the machines
Whilst working for the NHS in a primary care mental health service, I remember walking into the community mental health team’s monthly referrals meeting. The meeting was to discuss the referrals...
Comment
The rehabilitative aspects of human relationships
Whilst on a recent weekend away I found it almost impossible to put down Kate Rossmanith’s luminously written Small Wrongs: How we really...
Comment
The longer term view: Working with Arnie
Whilst working in a community drug project I remember walking into work one Monday morning and seeing Arnie’s (not his real name) referral paperwork on my desk.
I had not worked long at...
Comment
Recognising a touch of humanity
I recently picked up a 1964 copy of Undertow, by the prominent American educator Helen Parkhurst, a remarkably moving account of the life of a 'juvenile delinquent' called Tony...