Darren Woodward – författare

Providing an in-depth interrogation of the practitioner/academic role within the context of criminal justice, this book outlines the benefits and challenges of different roles through exploring the lived experience of the contributing authors.

Arranged into three comprehensive sections, the book acknowledges the contribution pracademics make to criminal justice, conceptualises pracademia in the criminal justice context and explores what it means to be a pracademic in the criminal justice setting. Exploring the theoretical, methodological, philosophical, practice and pedagogic value that practical application brings to teaching, learning and research, the book collectively develops a pracademic model framed within the context of criminal justice, which challenges the established ‘historical/traditional’ wisdom of academia with the aim of disrupting traditional knowledge production, contributing to new discussions and highlighting the value of scholarship grounded in practice in criminal justice.

Written and edited by pracademics with extensive criminal justice experience, Pracademics in Criminal Justice will be of value to anyone with an interest in how practice and academia intertwine in a criminal justice setting, including pracademics, academics, practitioners, applied academics, those with lived experience of practice in academia, activists, practivists and students, particularly those undertaking professional programmes, in areas such as policing or probation, or seeking careers as practitioners in the criminal justice system.

Providing an in-depth interrogation of the practitioner/academic role within the context of criminal justice, this book outlines the benefits and challenges of different roles through exploring the lived experience of the contributing authors.

Arranged into three comprehensive sections, the book acknowledges the contribution pracademics make to criminal justice, conceptualises pracademia in the criminal justice context and explores what it means to be a pracademic in the criminal justice setting. Exploring the theoretical, methodological, philosophical, practice and pedagogic value that practical application brings to teaching, learning and research, the book collectively develops a pracademic model framed within the context of criminal justice, which challenges the established ‘historical/traditional’ wisdom of academia with the aim of disrupting traditional knowledge production, contributing to new discussions and highlighting the value of scholarship grounded in practice in criminal justice.

Written and edited by pracademics with extensive criminal justice experience, Pracademics in Criminal Justice will be of value to anyone with an interest in how practice and academia intertwine in a criminal justice setting, including pracademics, academics, practitioners, applied academics, those with lived experience of practice in academia, activists, practivists and students, particularly those undertaking professional programmes, in areas such as policing or probation, or seeking careers as practitioners in the criminal justice system.

Exploring why prison officers leave His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the processes and trajectories involved in returning to ‘civilian life’, this book examines the reasons that prison officers want to leave HMPPS and how they transition back to ‘civvy street’.

As well as presenting qualitative data from interviews with ex-prison officers, the authors also draw analytically on their ‘insider’ positionality to offer insights on the lived experience of prison officers both in the role and on their subsequent departure from the service. In doing so, they identify the rewards and challenges of working in a prison environment, while using Ebaugh’s (1988) four-stage model of role exit as a theoretical framework to help understand the process of leaving the prison service. Among the issues addressed are the impact of austerity, the Voluntary Early Departure Scheme, the decline in transmission of knowledge (‘jail craft’) to new recruits, high staff turnover, increased violence and the impact of COVID-19. These are counterbalanced by an exposition of what ex-prison officers recall positively about their time in service, such as loyalty, support, solidarity and pride in the uniform and helping prisoners with their custodial lives. The authors also put forward practical recommendations for ways in which HMPPS could encourage prison officers to stay in post for longer.

Providing authentic insights into the role of ex-prison officers, this book is ideal reading for students and academics of criminology, penology, criminal justice, sociology and criminal psychology. It will also be of interest to criminal justice practitioners and organisations such as Unlocked Graduates, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust.