The rehabilitation of the offender in the community is today an integral part
of many criminal justice jurisdictions. This book takes a step back and describes
how this modern aspect of criminal justice was introduced in England
and Wales. At one level it is a history of criminal justice in England and Wales,
at another an account of how shifting psychological and social work discourses
became applied to the offender. It describes how modern beliefs in
the treatment of the criminal arrived. The work uses archive material to show
how policy and practice debates were resolved and the uneven and...

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...