This volume examines how volunteers and non-profit programs encourage institutional change in prisons and offer individual support and services to people who are housed behind bars. Through a diverse set of chapters, including two that are co-written by current prisoners, the volume spans the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and juvenile and adult facilities. The book showcases the exciting, groundbreaking, and yet often unrecognized work that the voluntary sector provides in correctional settings. Collectively, the chapters highlight beneficial practices while raising critical questions about the role of the voluntary sector in prison and reentry settings. The chapters also offer useful information about how to implement innovative prison programs that promote health, education, and peer support.

The book that launched the UK Prison Service initiative to involve the voluntary sector in the running of its prisons. Contains details which will enable both parties to understand what is involved, the history of voluntary work in prisons - which dates back several hundred years - and how to set about devising a scheme or promoting an idea.

Winner of the 2017 British Society of Criminology Book Prize The penal voluntary sector and the relationships between punishment and charity are more topical than ever before. In recent years in England and Wales, the sector has featured significantly in both policy rhetoric and academic commentary. Penal voluntary organisations are increasingly delivering prison and probation services under contract, and this role is set to expand. However, the diverse voluntary organisations which comprise the sector, their varied relationships with statutory agencies and the effects of such work remain very poorly understood. This book provides a wide-ranging and rigorous examination of this policy-relevant but complex and little studied area. It explores what voluntary organisations are doing with prisoners and probationers, how they manage to undertake their work, and the effects of charitable work with prisoners and probationers. The author uses original empirical research and an innovative application of actor-network theory to enable a step change in our understanding of this increasingly significant sector, and develops the policy-centric accounts produced in the last decade to illustrate how voluntary organisations can mediate the experiences of imprisonment and probation at the micro and macro levels. Demonstrating how the legacy of philanthropic work and neoliberal policy reforms over the past thirty years have created a complex three-tier penal voluntary sector of diverse organisations, this cutting-edge interdisciplinary text will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists of work and industry, and those engaged in the voluntary sector.

The voluntary sector has a long history of involvement in criminal justice by providing a variety of services to offenders and their families, victims and witnesses. This collection brings together leading experts to provide critical reflections and cutting edge research on the contemporary features of voluntary sector work in criminal justice. At a time when the voluntary sector's role is being transformed, this book examines the dynamic nature of the voluntary sector and its responses to current uncertainties, and some of the conflicting positions with regards to its present and future role in criminal justice work. It also examines the potential impact of economic, political and ideological trends on the role and remit of voluntary sector organisations which undertake criminal justice work.

Winner of the 2017 British Society of Criminology Book Prize The penal voluntary sector and the relationships between punishment and charity are more topical than ever before. In recent years in England and Wales, the sector has featured significantly in both policy rhetoric and academic commentary. Penal voluntary organisations are increasingly delivering prison and probation services under contract, and this role is set to expand. However, the diverse voluntary organisations which comprise the sector, their varied relationships with statutory agencies and the effects of such work remain very poorly understood. This book provides a wide-ranging and rigorous examination of this policy-relevant but complex and little studied area. It explores what voluntary organisations are doing with prisoners and probationers, how they manage to undertake their work, and the effects of charitable work with prisoners and probationers. The author uses original empirical research and an innovative application of actor-network theory to enable a step change in our understanding of this increasingly significant sector, and develops the policy-centric accounts produced in the last decade to illustrate how voluntary organisations can mediate the experiences of imprisonment and probation at the micro and macro levels. Demonstrating how the legacy of philanthropic work and neoliberal policy reforms over the past thirty years have created a complex three-tier penal voluntary sector of diverse organisations, this cutting-edge interdisciplinary text will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists of work and industry, and those engaged in the voluntary sector.

Prisoner resettlement is high on current political and policy agendas. The high reconviction rates of ex-prisoners have been acknowledged for many years but the rapidly rising prison population has meant that more prisoners than ever before are released. This together with the pressure this puts on to the infrastructure of the prison estate and the publication of two influential reports which highlighted the problems faced by prisoners leaving prison has concentrated attention on attempts to ensure that prisoners do not return to prison once released. The resettlement of prisoners is now a priority policy area linked directly to Government initiatives to reduce reoffending. The renewed policy interest in prisoners resettlement forms the context of this volume, which brings together current knowledge and understanding about prisoners resettlement. The book draws on the contributors extensive experience as researchers and practitioners in the field and includes contributions from acknowledged experts. Prisoner Resettlement provides a comprehensive review and analysis of resettlement policy and practice in England and Wales in the early part of the 21st century. In particular it: critically reviews current policy, theory, practice and research on prisoners resettlement explores practice issues through case studies of two resettlement initiatives and an examination of accommodation provision and voluntary sector involvement in prisoners resettlement; and examines the particular issues raised by the resettlement of different groups of prisoners including women, minority ethnic groups, prolific and priority offenders and high-risk offenders.

In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded almost 5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, women, people with mental illness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis—are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, have limited privacy, and often receive inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today's correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis contained in this book, Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners, emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: • expand the definition of "prisoner"; • ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; • shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; • update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and • enhance systematic oversight of research involving prisoners.