Understanding the Management of High Risk Offenders

by Kemshall, Hazel

• ISBN13: 9780335219995
• ISBN10: 0335219993
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Open University Press

Summary

"This is an extremely important and timely book written by a pre-eminent scholar in the field. Hazel Kemshall has a proven track record not just of exceptional scholarship but, equally importantly, of engaging effectively with policy and practice. Given the damaging synergies between media hype and public insecurities about 'dangerous' offenders, the evidence-based, measured and thoughtful analysis provided in this book provides a vital counterpoint to increasingly punitive and exclusionary discourses around public protection. In promoting a more balanced, humane and integrative approach to risk, the book deserves to influence not just scholars but also policy makers and practitioners facing the complex challenges of managing risk and dangerousness." Fergus McNeill, Associate Fellow of the Centre for Sentencing Research, Strathclyde University, UKHigh risk offenders have attracted much media, policy and practice interest in recent years. New legislation and extensive multi-agency partnerships have been initiated to improve the assessment and management of these offenders in the community.Drawing on a wide range of cross-national literature and original research by the author,this timely book reviews current approaches to the community management of high risk offenders. The book examines in detail a range of risk management techniques, including: Community protection measures (such as sexual offender registration and community notification) Restorative and re-integrative measures (such as Circles of Support and Accountability, pro-social modelling, public health campaigns and environmental risk management approaches) Hazel Kemshall argues for a 'blending' of these two approaches to provide risk management interventions for the 'protective integration' of high risk offenders back into the community.In addition, the book examines contemporary difficulties in risk assessment, effective multi-agency partnership working, and recent policy and legislative initiatives in this challenging area of work.Understanding the Management of High Risk Offendersis a vital resource for criminology and criminal justice students and stimulating reading for probation officers, social workers, police and prison staff, among others.

Author Biography

Hazel Kemshall is Professor of Community and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University, UK. She has published numerous books and articles on risk in social policy and criminal justice. .

Table of Contents

Series editor's foreword	p. xiii
Acknowledgements	p. xv
List of acronyms	p. xvi
Introduction	p. 1
Framing the problem: contemporary responses to high risk offenders	p. 3
Introduction	p. 3
Who are high risk offenders?	p. 5
Can we know them?	p. 7
Risk assessment tools	p. 8
The problem of risk prediction	p. 9
Differing interpretations of risk	p. 11
Criteria and evidence	p. 12
The rise of community protection	p. 13
Limits to the community protection model	p. 18
Protection or punishment?	p. 21
Exclusionary or integrative? Alternative approaches to risky offenders	p. 21
Notes	p. 23
Further reading	p. 23
Useful websites and key sources	p. 24
Differing perspectives on an old problem: how do we know the dangerous?	p. 25
Introduction	p. 25
The long view	p. 26
Framing risk and dangerousness	p. 30
Criminological and legal approaches to risk and dangerousness	p. 30
Psychological framing of high risk offenders and dangerousness	p. 34
Sociological understandings of risk and dangerousness	p. 37
Governance: surveillance, social sorting and social regulation	p. 40
The limits of governmentality, surveillance and social sorting	p. 42
The social construction of risk and the role of the media	p. 43
Conclusion	p. 46
Notes	p. 46
Further reading	p. 47
Risk assessment: difficulties and dilemmas	p. 48
Decision making on risk: the key issues	p. 48
Categories and thresholds of risk	p. 49
Systemic faults in risk assessment	p. 53
Individual sources of error	p. 55
Solutions for reducing error	p. 59
What do offenders think about risk assessment?	p. 62
Summary	p. 64
Notes	p. 64
Further reading	p. 65
Protection through partnership	p. 66
MAPPA: the statutory approach to public protection	p. 67
Key issues in statutory partnerships	p. 71
Public health and community approaches to protection	p. 73
Partnerships with local communities: Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA)	p. 74
Partnership with communities and public: building awareness and responsibility	p. 78
Building awareness and responsibility	p. 79
Protection through partnership: a summary	p. 83
Further reading	p. 84
Risk management	p. 85
Introduction	p. 85
Community protection risk management strategies	p. 86
Supervision and monitoring	p. 88
Cognitive behavioural treatment and intervention programmes	p. 89
Evaluations of CBT	p. 92
Beyond the punishment paradigm - PHA, 'good lives' and risk management	p. 94
Prevention strategies and environmental/opportunity management strategies	p. 97
Social inclusion and integration techniques, including prosocial statutory supervision	p. 102
Relapse prevention	p. 105
What is the potential for restorative approaches?	p. 106
Summary	p. 107
Notes	p. 108
Further reading	p. 108
Key issues in managing high risk offenders	p. 109
Introduction	p. 109
Risks versus rights	p. 110
Ethical issues	p. 113
Community notification	p. 115
The situation in the UK	p. 118
Supervision and monitoring	p. 123
Evidence of effectiveness	p. 124
Community protection or reintegration: competing or complementary approaches to the community management of high risk offenders?	p. 126
Summary	p. 128
Notes	p. 128
Further reading	p. 128
Concluding comments	p. 130
Pulling the threads together	p. 130
Blending protection	p. 132
Glossary	p. 134
References	p. 136
Index	p. 165
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.