Reviews : Young Offenders and Alcohol Related Crime Wiley, 1993; £19.95 pbk
| Published date | 01 October 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059304000317 |
| Date | 01 October 1993 |
| Author | Susan Williams |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
161
Young
Offenders
and
Alcohol
Related
Crime
Wiley,
1993;
£19.95
pbk
‘I
wish
that
out
of
all
these
books
I
am
reading,
just
one
would
tell
me
some
practical
things
I
can
actually
do
with
clients’.
Thus
spoke
one
of
our
team
members,
a
probation
officer
with
twelve
years
experience
who
had
just
joined
our
specialist
drug
and
alcohol
unit.
Well,
I
think
this
might
be
the
book
he
has
been
looking
for.
The book
definitely
lives
up
to
its
claim
to
be
a
’Practitioners
Guidebook’.
It
gives
comprehensive
summaries,
including
explanation
and
history
of
the
academic
theories,
of
almost
all
the
methods
which
have
been
proven
successful
in
intervening
with
problems
drinkers.
It
contains
some
of
the
clearest,
most
user-friendly
accounts
of
cognitive
and
behaviour
theory
and
of
motivational
interviewing
that
I
have
come
across,
and
the
nice
thing
is
it
relates
drinking
cogently
to
offending,
without
attempt
at
over-simplification.
As
well
as
being
theoretically
informative,
the
authors
are
aware
of
the
pressure
of
working
with
large
numbers
of
people
which
is
a
daily
feature
of
probation
officers’
lives.
So
many
of
the
conferences
and
cioss-agency
fora
I
attend
seem
either
rarefied
and
concerned
with
providing
a
service
to
a
select,
motivated
few,
or
else
obsessed
by
the
implications
of
the
Commuinity
Care
Act.
It’s
nice
to
read
something
which
is
strictly
relevant
to
what
we
do.
The
section
on
Alcohol
Education
certainly
kills
the
myth
(if
it
still
needed
killing)
that
all
you
have
to
do
is
to
inform
offenders
in
graphic
detail
about
the
undesirable
effects
of
alcohol,
and
they
will
control
their
use
of
it.
By
’young
offender’
the
book
is
really
talking
about
those
up
to
their
mid-
twenties
and
the
authors
make
the
trenchant
point
that
it
is
useless
to
talk
to
young,
heavy
drinkers
about
horrible
effects
of
alcohol
(such
as
brain
damage
or
peripheral
neuritis),
when
all
their
friends
drink
a
lot
and
no-one
has
these
ailments
now
The
book
emphasises
the
importance
of
targetting
interventions
appropriately,
and
also
talks
in
wider
terms
about
lifestyle
changes,
and
self-help.
A
modular
approach
to
work
with
young
offenders
is
suggested.
The
approach
combines
the
stages
of
change
model
of
Prochaska
and
DeClemente
with
a
selection
of
proven
effective
methods
of
intervention,
such
as
Behavioural
Self-
Control
Training.
Many
research
studies
are
quoted,
the
majority
of
them
concerned
with
young
people.
Practical
guidelines
are
also
given.
I
would
have
liked
to
see
more
about
work
with
women
but
I
am
not
surprised
at
the
lack
of
this,
since the
research
hasn’t
really
been
done
as
far
as
I
know.
In
conclusion,
I
can
say
that
our
Unit’s
recent
gruelling
review
process
would
have
been
eased
by
the
earlier
appearance
of
this
book.
As
it
happens
we
have
arrived
at
a
model
quite
similar
to
the
one
propounded
here -
heartening
I
suppose,
but
we
wouldn’t
have
minded
a
few
short
cuts.
The
book
makes
a
final
plea
to
us
as
practitioners
to
evaluate
and
write
up
our
work
and
disseminate
it.
I
can
only
echo
this.
Who
knows,
if
it
catches
on
maybe
we’ll
build
up
a
body
of
research
on
work
with
young
women
offenders
who
misuse
alcohol.
Susan
Williams
SPO,
Harm
Reduction
Unit
South
Glamorgan
Probation
Service
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