Delivering Rehabilitation: The politics, governance and control of probation

`This is a timely and well-judged book that offers an acute analysis of probation's recent past, combining many perceptive and original insights with a searing critique of the political ineptitude and cynicism that have destabilised - and perhaps wrecked - the probation service. Its account of the way in which social problems are constructed and managed in our times makes the book of value not only to students of criminal justice, but to anyone with an interest in modern social policy.' - Rob Canton, Professor in Community and Criminal Justice, De Montfort University, UK

`They say timing is everything , and what an incredible time this is for a book on the politics and governance of probation in the UK. Yet, Delivering Rehabilitation also addresses timeless and crucial questions about the right to rehabilitation in a democratic society. If there is any justice left, this transformative book will have a longer lasting and more profound impact on probation than the latest Government shake-up.' - Shadd Maruna, Dean, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University - Newark, USA

'Delivering Rehabilitation offers an exemplary exercise in reinvigorating an immensely important, and significantly neglected, professional service.'- Russ Immarigeon, Journal of Community Corrections

'This is a book which deals with issues that are of pressing contemporary concern.... The authors bring considerable experience of the probation service from academic, practitioner and management perspectives. They combine this with a well-informed account of the wider forces that have shaped the delivery of public services over the past 20 years. The work is admirably up to date and the scholarship is evident...'- Jane Dominey, University of Cambridge, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice

'Overall, this is an informative and captivating read for the wide range of readers it aims for. It is necessarily wide ranging, yet also concise enough to remain on topic which is a real achievement given the title of the book. It is unashamedly political rather than a neutral review of the state of probation, which, whatever political persuasion the reader adopts, is the main draw to reading this book.' - Paul Crossey, Prison Service Journal

Burke and Collett have made one of the first important attempts to theorize the new privatization as the culmination of development in probation which stretch back at least two decades... This book rightly deserves to be widely read and debated both within probation academic and practitioner circles, and the criminal justice and criminology arena. - , Wendy Fitzgibbon, Professor of Criminology. London Metropolitan University, Probation Journal

It is also very refreshing to read a text in which `rehabilitation' is understood as a broad endeavour aimed at encouraging desistance and involving the civic reintegration of ex-offenders. All too often - and certainly in the policies which Burke & Collett critique - rehabilitation is understood in purely instrumental terms -- as a technical means of bringing about reductions in recidivism, as cheaply as possible. Burke & Collett are right to remind us that rehabilitation is not a commodity to be exchanged in a marketplace; nor are the thousands of dedicated people who still choose to work with offenders in the humanitarian tradition of the probation service. It is also refreshing to read a text in which poverty, class and race are rightly acknowledged as key social divisions. - Gwen Robinson, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, May 2016