Why do some modern societies punish their offenders differently to others? Why are some more punitive and others more tolerant in their approach to offending and how can these differences be explained? Based on extensive historical analysis and fieldwork in the penal systems of England, Australia and New Zealand on the one hand and Finland, Norway and Sweden on the other, this book seeks to answer these questions.

The book argues that the penal differences that currently exist between these two clusters of societies emanate from their early nineteenth-century social...

A great deal has been written about the political, policy and practice changes that have shaped probation work but little has been written on the changes to occupational cultures and the ways in which probation workers themselves view their role. This book fills that gap by exploring the meaning of 'doing probation work' from the perspective of probation workers themselves.

Based on 60 extensive interviews with probation workers who joined the probation service from the 1960s to the present day, this book reaches beyond criminological and policy analysis to an application...

Policing Cities brings together international scholars from numerous disciplines to examine urban policing, securitization, and regulation in nine countries and the conceptual issues these practices raise. Chapters cover many of the world s major cities, including New York, Beijing, Paris, London, Berlin, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Boston, Melbourne, and Toronto, as well as other urban areas in Britain, United States, South Africa, Germany, Australia and Georgia.

The collection examines the activities and reforms of the traditional public police, but also those of...

This book explores how restorative justice is used and what its potential benefits are in situations where the state has been either explicitly or implicitly involved in human rights abuses. Restorative justice is increasingly becoming a popular mechanism to respond to crime in democratic settings and while there is a burgeoning literature on these contexts, there is less information that focuses explicitly on its use in nations that have experienced protracted periods of conflict and oppression.

This book interrogates both macro and micro utilisations of restorative justice including...

Training and education constitutes the backbone of a significant amount of police activity and expenditure in developing the most important resources involved in policing work. It also involves an array of actors and agencies, such as educational institutions which have a long and important relationship with police organizations.

This book examines the role of education and training in the development of police in the contemporary world. Bringing together specialist scholars and practitioners from around the world, the book examines training methods in the UK, the USA, Australia,...

Criminological and penological scholarship has in recent years explored how and why institutions and systems of punishment change and how and why these changes differ in different contexts. Important though these analyses are, this book focuses not so much on the changing nature of institutions and systems, but rather the changing nature of penal "practice and practitioners

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Bringing together leading researchers from around the world, this collection unites studies that aim to "describe" and critically analyse penal practice with studies that investigate its effectiveness and...

The police in Taiwan played a critical role in the largely peaceful transition from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. While the temptation to intervene in domestic politics was great, the top-down pressure to maintain a neutral standing facilitated an orderly regime change. This is the first monograph to examine the role of the police as a linkage between the state and civil society during the democratic transition and the role of the police in contemporary Taiwan.

Starting with a brief history of Taiwan, this book examines the development of policing in Taiwan from a comparative,...

In recent decades, research into the legitimacy of criminal justice has convincingly demonstrated the importance of procedural justice to citizens sense of trust and confidence in legal authorities and their resulting willingness to conform to the law and cooperate with the legal authorities. Reversing the age-old question why do people break the law?, theories of procedural justice have provided insight into the factors that encourage people to abide by the law, suggesting that experiences of procedural fairness are crucial to achieving compliance with the law and to enhancing the...

Why is punishment not more effective? Why do we have such high re-offending rates? How can we deal with crime and criminals in a more cost-effective way? Over the last decade in particular, the United Kingdom, in common with other jurisdictions such as Canada, the United States (US) and Australia, has sought to develop more effective ways of responding to criminal behaviour through court reforms designed to address specific manifestations of crime. Strongly influenced by developments in US court specialisation, problem-solving and specialist courts - including domestic violence courts,...