Alternatives to prison : options for an insecure society

As the UK faces up to the consequences of a rapidly increasing prison population so the search for alternative approaches to punishment and dealing with offenders has become an increasingly urgent priority for government policy and society as a whole.

This book, a product of the Coulsfield Commission and written by the leading authorities in the field, provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging review of the range of issues associated with using the variety of non-custodial sanctions, examining experiences in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales.The book will be essential reading not only for government policy makers and criminal justice practitioners but for anybody with a professional or academic interest in prison, probation and the nature of society's response to wrong-doing.

The chapters in the book cover such issues as trends in crime, victimisation and punishment; sentencing frameworks; public opinion and community penalties; diversionary and non-supervisory approaches to dealing with offenders; reparative and restorative approaches; electronic monitoring; dealing with substance-misusing offenders in the community; sentencing decisions; punitiveness in high crime-communities; dimensions of difference.