Forensic work occurs across the criminal justice sector and the legal and health professions and intersects with work in a range of areas, such as child protection, family welfare, mental health, offending, disability and addictions, family violence programmes, juvenile justice and sexual assault centres. This book offers contemporary perspectives on forensic policy and practice from the range of practitioners working with people within the forensic domain and canvasses ideas about risk and offending behaviours together with ideas about effective responses to rehabilitation and recovery. The contributors to this proposed book are drawn from the practitioners, policy contributors, advocates and researchers in mental health, welfare, law, criminology, policing and health. Negligible attention has been paid to forensic policy and practice; this proposed book offers cross-national attention to how mental health, welfare and justice systems intersect, who they affect, and how practitioners structure effective responses for vulnerable people within the forensic domain. A particular strength of the book is its international focus, making it relevant to academics and practitioners who work in this field around the world.

Forensic work occurs across the criminal justice sector and the legal and health professions and intersects with work in a range of areas, such as child protection, family welfare, mental health, offending, disability and addictions, family violence programmes, juvenile justice and sexual assault centres. This book offers contemporary perspectives on forensic policy and practice from the range of practitioners working with people within the forensic domain and canvasses ideas about risk and offending behaviours together with ideas about effective responses to rehabilitation and recovery. The contributors to this proposed book are drawn from the practitioners, policy contributors, advocates and researchers in mental health, welfare, law, criminology, policing and health. Negligible attention has been paid to forensic policy and practice; this proposed book offers cross-national attention to how mental health, welfare and justice systems intersect, who they affect, and how practitioners structure effective responses for vulnerable people within the forensic domain. A particular strength of the book is its international focus, making it relevant to academics and practitioners who work in this field around the world.

Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.

Trauma-Informed Forensic Practice argues for placing trauma-informed practice and thinking at the heart of forensic services. It is written by forensic practitioners and service users from prison and forensic mental health, youth justice, and social care settings. It provides a compassionate theoretical framework for understanding the links between trauma and offending. It also gives practical guidance on working with issues that are particularly associated with a history of trauma in forensic settings, such as self-harm and substance use, as well as on working with groups who are particularly vulnerable to trauma, such as those with intellectual disabilities and military veterans. Finally, it considers organisational aspects of delivering trauma-informed care, not just for service users but for the staff who work in challenging and dangerous forensic environments. The book is the first of its kind to address such a broad range of issues and settings. It is aimed at forensic practitioners who wish to develop their own trauma-informed practice or trauma-responsive services. It also provides an accessible introduction to trauma-informed forensic practice for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The core baseline of Intelligence-led Policing is the aim of increasing efficiency and quality of police work, with a focus on crime analysis and intelligence methods as tools for informed and objective decisions both when conducting targeted, specialized operations and when setting strategic priorities. This book critically addresses the proliferation of intelligence logics within policing from a wide array of scholarly perspectives. It considers questions such as: How are precautionary logics becoming increasingly central in the dominant policing strategies? What kind of challenges will this move entail? What does the criminalization of preparatory acts mean for previous distinctions between crime prevention and crime detection? What are the predominant rationales behind the proactive use of covert cohesive measures in order to prevent attacks on national security? How are new technological measures, increased private partnerships and international cooperation challenging the core nature of police services as the main providers of public safety and security? This book offers new insights by exploring dilemmas, legal issues and questions raised by the use of new policing methods and the blurred and confrontational lines that can be observed between prevention, intelligence and investigation in police work.

Although restorative justice is probably one of the most talked about topics in contemporary criminology, little has been written about how community involvement in restorative justice translates into practice. While advocates have presented the community as an essential pillar of restorative justice, the rationale for why and how this is the case remains underdeveloped and largely unchallenged. This book offers an empirical and theoretical explanation of what ‘community involvement’ means and what work it does in restorative justice. Drawing on an empirical case study and the wider sociological literature, The Role of Community in Restorative Justice examines the involvement of the community in one selected practice of restorative justice and also considers the implications of the English and Welsh experience for development of a more coherent framework for operationalizing community involvement in restorative justice practices. It is argued that restorative justice programmes need to start from a more concrete and up-to-date notion of community. While operationalizing community involvement, they need to acknowledge, all at once: the importance of place; the importance of family links, friendship and other social ties; and the importance of similar social traits and identities. This book is essential reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, community studies, policy studies, social policy and socio-legal studies. This book will also be valuable reading for a variety of practitioners and policymakers, particularly working with restorative justice and youth justice.

Pre-crime aims to pre-empt ‘would-be-criminals’ and predict future crime. Although the term is borrowed from science fiction, the drive to predict and pre-empt crime is a present-day reality. This book critically explores this major twenty-first century development in crime and justice. This first in-depth study of pre-crime defines and describes different types of pre-crime and compares it to traditional post-crime and crime risk approaches. It analyses the rationales that underpin pre-crime as a response to threats, particularly terrorism, and shows how it is spreading to other areas. It also underlines the historical continuities that prefigure the emergence of pre-crime, as well as exploring the new technologies and forms of surveillance that claim the ability to predict crime and identify future criminals. Through the use of examples and case studies it provides insights into how pre-crime generates the crimes it purports to counter, providing compelling evidence of the problems that arise when we act as if we know the future and aim to control it through punishing, disrupting or incapacitating those we predict might commit future crimes. Drawing on literature from criminology, law, international relations, security and globalization studies, this book sets out a coherent framework for the continued study of pre-crime and addresses key issues such as terminology, its links to past practises, its likely future trajectories and its impact on security, crime and justice. It is essential reading for academics and students in security studies, criminology, counter-terrorism, surveillance, policing and law, as well as practitioners and professionals in these fields.