Contemporary probation practice is developing rapidly and is become increasingly professionalized. Probation officers are typically described now as offender managers, and the creation of NOMS (National Offender Management Service) has broadened the remit of the Probation Service. As well as bringing an increased emphasis on skills and qualifications it has also introduced a new set of ideas and concepts into the established probation lexicon - including institutional, legal, political and theoretical terms of its own as well as importing concepts from the disciplines of sociology, criminology and psychology. This Dictionary is the essential reference book. This Dictionary is part a new series of Dictionaries covering key aspects of criminal justice and the criminal justice system and designed to meet the needs of both students and practitioners: approximately 300 entries (of between 500 and 1500 words) on key terms and concepts arranged alphabetically designed to meet the needs of both students and practitioners entries include summary definition, main text and key texts and sources takes full account of emerging occupational and Skills for Justice criteria edited by a leading academic and practitioner in the probation and offender management field entries contributed by leading academic and practitioners in probation and offender management.

Both probation and youth justice have undergone massive changes in recent years, and continue to face important new challenges. A key emphasis of new developments has been on developing effective evidence-based practice and disseminating this throughout the Probation and Youth Justice services - reviewed in this book.

A typical image of the making and administration of policy suggests that it takes place on an incremental basis, involving public servants, their ministers and, to a more limited extent, a variety of interest groups. Yet, much policy making is based on similar policy developed in other jurisdictions and in the major international organizations such as the WTO and the OECD. In other words, significant aspects of nationally developed policies are copied from elsewhere in what is described as a process of policy transfer and learning. Hence, studies of policy transfer have pointed to a distinct limitation in most existing theoretical and empirical explanations as to how policy is made and implemented through their neglect of the role of policy transfer and learning. Moreover, policy transfer is not only a concern of academics, but a growing concern for governments. The latter are concerned to improve the performance of their policy and several have placed a greater, more systematic focus on policy transfer as a means to increasing performance. This book presents a variety of cases from differing national and international contexts that enable a valuable, comparative analysis that is absent from most literature currently available and that suggest a number of exciting research directions with implications for policy making, transference and implementation in the future.

Will 'what works' in one country work in another? This unique collection examines the cross-cultural transfer of skills and expertise, drawing out the opportunities and challenges involved in taking penal practices from one country to another.

This comprehensive reference work presents inside information on the Juvenile Justice-systems in 19 different countries, both in old and new EU-member states and in the United States and Canada. The book is the result of research conducted by a group of outstanding researchers, who are concerned about trends in Juvenile Justice in the last two decades, which blur the border between criminal and juvenile justice.