Rehabilitation and Probation in England and Wales, 1876-1962 draws on a wide range of archive material to describe the arrival of a modern probation service. Focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, it describes the debates, conflicts and compromises that resulted in the creation of a state sponsored, centrally controlled, professional, secular, social work and psychological based agency. Following a chronological structure, Ray Gard explores the arrival of the so-called period of 'penal optimism', showing how rehabilitation arrived in the courts of England and Wales. The...

The Policing of Belfast, 1870-1914 examines the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in late Victorian Belfast in order to see how a semi-military, largely rural constabulary adapted to the problems that a city posed. Mark Radford explores whether the RIC, as the most public face of British government, was successful in controlling a recalcitrant Irish urban populace. This examination of the contrast in styles between urban and rural policing and semi-rural and civil constabulary offers an important insight into the social, political and military history of Ireland at the turn of the...