Book review: Fergus McNeill, Peter Raynor, Chris Trotter (eds.), Offender Supervision: New directions in theory, research and practice
| Author | Rod Morgan |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895811435587 |
| Published date | 01 April 2012 |
| Date | 01 April 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
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Fergus McNeill, Peter Raynor and Chris Trotter (eds)
Offender Supervision: New Directions in Theory, Research and Practice, Cullompton: Willan, 2010. 555
pp. 9781843929369, £90.00 (hbk), 9781843929352, £29.95 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Rod Morgan, University of Bristol, UK and Cardiff University, UK
There may be huge uncertainty in England and Wales about the future shape of youth
justice and the organisation of the probation service, but behind the scenes and interna-
tionally those who think about the theory and practice of offender supervision appear
remarkably resilient. This fat collection of 24 essays, sandwiched between an editorial
introduction and conclusion, is the result of a network (Collaboration of Researchers for
the Effective Development of Offender Supervision, CREDOS) established in 2007
which has since met three times and involves members from Australia and North
America as well as Europe. Disappointingly, however, despite the fact that their inaugu-
ral meeting took place in Italy, all the contributors are, with the exception of two Dutch
academics, from common law jurisdictions. As Friedrich Lösel (2012) has highlighted
in a forthcoming essay, most of the research on what works in offender supervision
remains confined to the English-speaking world, which makes one wonder whether
tricks are being missed.
With the exception of Tom O’Connor and Brad Bogue’s account of Circles of
Support in Canada, for example, there is practically no mention of volunteers or men-
toring schemes and though there is a useful essay from Gill McIvor on judicial involve-
ment in offender management, her evidence and attention is entirely restricted to drugs
and other specialist courts in common law countries. Her summation of the arguments
against judicial involvement, judges ‘overstepping the mark’ by straying into ‘profes-
sional’ terrain for which they have no ‘expertise’, would strike many Continental
lawyers as curiously...
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