As the UK and many other western societies face up to the consequences of a rapidly increasing prison population, so the search for alternative approaches to punishment and dealing with offenders has become an increasingly urgent priority for government policy and society as a whole. This book reports the results of the research programme commissioned by the Coulsfield Inquiry into Alternatives to Prison, which was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn 'Rethinking Crime and Punishment' initiative. It is written by leading authorities in the field, and provides a comprehensive, authoritative and wide-ranging review of the range of issues associated with the use of noncustodial sanctions, examining experiences in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales.

On any given day in America, more than 1.5 million people are locked up in state prisons and local jails, at costs that approach $20,000 per inmate each year. Crime and incarceration generate heated, but often contradictory, political debate; voters consider prisons the only real sanction for crime, but adamantly resist new taxes to pay for them. Sensible Justice explores creative solutions some states and cities nationwide have devised to tackle the prison problem.

Community penalties are punishments that, in the courts' sentencing tariff, come between imprisonment and fines. They include electronic tagging, supervised unpaid work, and compulsory participation by offenders in treatment programmes. Recent years have seen many changes in England in the field of community penalties. These have included the rapid development of accredited offending behaviour programmes, and some new court orders such as the Referral Order for juveniles, based on the principles of restorative justice. Organisationally, too, the year 2001 sees a major change with the establishment of the National Probation Service for England and Wales. Community Penalties: change and challenges addresses the key issues facing community penalties at this critical time. Topics covered include the recent history of community penalties, partnership work, cognitive behavioural approaches to changing offenders' behaviour (and the need to look beyond these), compliance theory, accountability to the public and to the victim, accommodating difference and diversity in the delivery of community penalties, the use of technology in community penalties, and community penalties and issues of public safety. Community Penalties: change and challenges brings together many leading authors in this field. Together, they provide an authoritative review of a vital field of public policy.

In 2003, there were almost seven million criminals in the United States. But only about two million of them were behind bars. In Alternatives to Prison, you'll learn why those other five million people are out on parole or probation. You'll also learn about: rehabilitation, community service, boot camps, day reporting, house arrest, and what the future may hold for other alternatives to prison.

With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

With a new afterword from the authors, the critically praised indictment of widely embraced “alternatives to incarceration” Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But in a searing, “cogent critique” (Library Journal), Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal that many of these so-called reforms actually weave in new strands of punishment and control, bringing new populations who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment under physical control by the state. Whether readers are seasoned abolitionists or are newly interested in sensible alternatives to retrograde policing and criminal justice policies and approaches, this highly praised book offers “a wealth of critical insights” that will help readers “tread carefully through the dizzying terrain of a world turned upside down” and “make sense of what should take the place of mass incarceration” (The Brooklyn Rail). With a foreword by Michelle Alexander, Prison by Any Other Name exposes how a kinder narrative of reform is effectively obscuring an agenda of social control, challenging us to question the ways we replicate the status quo when pursuing change, and offering a bolder vision for truly alternative justice practices.