Sage Publications Working with Offenders: Issues, Contexts and Outcomes (New Directions in Social Work series)

Working with Offenders examines the current knowledge, skills and values which are needed by those working as probation officers and social workers for effective and competent practice. As well as looking at areas of practice which are of central importance to the altering roles of practitioners, this original textbook provides a critical appraisal of the policies and requirements which guide those roles. Written in an accessible style by experienced academics and professionals, the book examines: the issues which inform practice - training, skills and competences, antidiscriminatory practice, autonomy and accountability, masculinity and the causes of crime; the contexts in which work with offenders take place - probation committees, boards, pre-sentence reports, community penalties, prison, and the community; and the outcomes of good practice - including partnerships against crime, efficiency, effectiveness and an evaluation of crime prevention and broader methods of intervention. Review `As a practitioner I found it helpful and illuminating to find all the key debates and issues, together with some summaries available research and evidence, in one volume′ - Youth and Policy `A recurrent theme is the increasing centralisation of probation policy, increasing managerialism and the implications thereof for professional autonomy and accountability.... In conveying clearly the context of contemporary probation practice, this book will be of particular value to students on courses which themselves, ironically, have fallen victim to centralised initiatives that deny the relevance of social work values and skills to work with offenders′ - Community Care About the Author Tim May originally trained and worked as an agricultural engineer. After his PhD (1990), he was appointed to a lectureship at Plymouth (1989-95) and then moved to the University of Durham (1995-99) and was appointed at Salford in 1999. He became Director of the Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures in 2001. He is currently Professor of Social Science Methodology and Director of Research at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield. He has held research grants from many sources including: ESRC; EPSRC; AHRC; Mistra (Swedish Environmental Research Foundation; Regional Development Agencies; Core Cities Group; Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Higher Education Funding Council; Local Government Management Board; Economic and Social Research Council; Manchester City Council; the CONTACT group of the four Greater Manchester Universities and the NHS.   In addition to the books and journals listed below, Tim May has contributed chapters to the following publications:   May, T. and Perry, B. 2013 ‘Reflexivity and Data Analysis’. In Flick, U. (ed). Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. London: SAGE.   May, T. 2013 ‘Reflexivity’. In Kaldis, B. (ed). Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences. London: SAGE.   May, T. and Williams, M. 2010 ‘Commitment and Investigation in Knowing the Social World’. In Olsen, W. (ed). Realist Methodology, Volume 1: Practical Realist Ontology. London: SAGE.   May, T. and Powell, J. 2007 ‘Michel Foucault’. In Edwards, T. (ed). Cultural Theory: Classical and Contemporary Positions. London: SAGE.May, T 2006 ‘Critical Theory’. In Booth, C. and Harrington, J (eds). Developing Business Knowledge. UWE/ SAGE.   May, T. 2005 ‘Reflexivity and Sociological Practice’. In Williams, M. (ed). The Philosophical Foundations of Social Research, Volume 3: Social Reality and the Social Context of Social Research. London: SAGE.   May, T. 2004 ‘Poststructuralism’, ‘Critical Theory’, ‘Postempiricism’. In Bryman, A., Lewis-Beck, M. and Futing Liao, T. (eds). Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. May, T. 2002 ‘The Discontented Epoch: Freedom and Security in Bauman’s Postmodernity′. In Beilharz, P. (ed). Zygmunt Bauman: 4 Volumes. Volume 3, ‘The Postmodern’.