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Out of sight and out of mind
I recently read Michael Rowe's finely calibrated ethnography, Crossing the Border: Encounters Between Homeless People and Outreach Worker. It reminded me of my 'messy' professional...
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Never stop listening
Whilst reading Philip Whitehead's scholarly analysis, Transforming probation. Social theories and the criminal justice system, of the 'injudicious' politics of modernisation in probation...
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The double standards in probation
This month, my reflection is a departure from my regular offender-based narratives, because after reading Michael W Clune's gripping...
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Probation reforms are sabotaging rehabilitation
The government's reforms of probation in England and Wales appear to be sabotaging, rather than transforming, the rehabilitation and resettlement of prisoners, our Director Richard Garside says today.
Richard was reacting to...
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Probation reforms risk breaking relationships
I recently read Colin Grant's poignant recollections of his brother Christopher's experiences of epilepsy...
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The gravitational pull of law breaking
Having just read the scabrously entertaining offerings in the late Howard Marks...
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A day in the life of a probation officer
There was an immediate emotional resonance for me, albeit with a culturally distinctive tone, after reading Caroline O'Nolan's sociologically insightful...
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How to fit into the fragmented services of probation?
Whilst reading Duncan Campbell's compulsively entertaining history...
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Unable to break away from the past
After reading Kevin Cook's compelling reconstruction of the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City in 1964, I was powerfully...
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What a normal life might be?
I recently read Paul Renn's authoritative overview which includes a chapter on forensic practice whilst he ...
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Emerging from the past to a positive future
I recently read the remarkable story of how a boy called Herbert Niccolls Jr, who was jailed for life for murder in 1930's...
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One worth supporting
When I recently finished reading Erwin James blisteringly honest and compelling memoir, I was reminded of when I...