Reimagining Rehabilitation

Lol Burke is Professor in Criminal Justice at Liverpool John Moore’s University and specialises in the areas of probation research, policy and practice. He has a particular interest in the way that occupational culture acts out in probation settings and resettlement provision for released prisoners. As a former probation practitioner, he has considerable experience working in both community and custodial settings. Steve Collett worked for three North West probation areas across four decades, retiring from the Cheshire Probation Trust in December 2010 after ten years as its chief officer. He is an Honorary Fellow within the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at Liverpool University, an Honorary Reader in Criminology within the School of Law at Manchester University, and an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University. Fergus McNeill is Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow where he works in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and in Sociology. Prior to becoming an academic in 1998, Fergus worked for a number of years in residential drug rehabilitation and as a criminal justice social worker.

"Building on their earlier book (Delivering Rehabilitation), Lol Burke and Steve Collett join with Fergus McNeill to propose a much more rounded conception of rehabilitation than the narrow correctionalism that has dominated political debate and much academic research. Rehabilitation and desistance must involve a great deal more than the interventions of criminal justice, but call on the responsibilities of the state and the community. The authors have written a book that combines academic rigour and a compelling political critique to show that "Ultimately, questions about punishment and rehabilitation are questions about the kinds of society we want to live in and to strive for."Prof. Rob Canton, De Montfort University, UK"Rehabilitation is buried, then resurrected, with the regularity of a zombie, but what the rehabilitative ideal needs is not another undead awakening but rather a complete reimagination. In this essential new vision, Burke, Collett and McNeill get us closer than ever before to a truly holistic concept of rehabilitation that transcends the individual-blaming of the risk model. We may be closer than ever to realising a vision of justice that is worthy of the name."Prof. Shadd Maruna, author of Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives."Despite a significant resurgence of interest in rehabilitation at the policy level in a number of jurisdictions, there have been surprisingly few attempts to outline a vision of what is needed to make this a reality for those caught up in offending and the criminal justice apparatus. This timely book delivers on that with a sophisticated and thoughtful analysis of what an effective rehabilitation strategy might look like. I recommend Reimagining Rehabilitation to students, practitioners, scholars and policy makers everywhere."Gwen Robinson, Reader in Criminal Justice, University of Sheffield, UK"Going back to at least the birth of the penitentiary, scholars, policy-makers, and the public have debated the ideal form and functions of punishment. Rehabilitation has been lost, declared dead, and discovered anew. Burke, Collett, and McNeill's Reimagining Rehabilitation breathes new life into this enduring debate, providing an imaginative vision for twenty-first-century criminal justice. Rather than a narrow criminology oriented towards reducing risk and reoffending, the authors develop a model of personal, legal, moral, and social rehabilitation that can improve the lives of justice-involved individuals--and, in the process, redeem our democratic ideals."Prof. Michelle S. Phelps, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, USA

• 1. Introduction: What’s wrong with contemporary rehabilitation and why do we want to change it? 2. Reimagining social control and support: Current realities, dystopian futures? 3. Reimagining the rehabilitative journey: Personal rehabilitation, 4. Reimagining the legal and sentencing framework: Judicial rehabilitation, 5. Reimagining practice cultures and values: Moral rehabilitation, 6. Reimagining civil society and community engagement: Social rehabilitation, 7. Conclusion: Beyond the personal - reimagining something better, fairer and more effective?