Description
This comprehensive and accessible book outlines and critically appraises alternatives to custody. At a time of escalating prison costs, severe overcrowding and rising recidivism rates, punishment in the community is widely seen as the means by which these problems can be solved. Tony Vass assesses the validity of this claim.
He traces the development of the prison, its recurrent crises and the search for workable alternatives. Can alternative punishments succeed in diverting offenders from imprisonment or will they inevitably be used as extra punitive measures by the court? Are they cheaper? How will they be enforced? What will their effect be on both offenders and the community at large!
Drawing on international comparisons and experiences of diverting offenders from custody through a variety of means including tagging and electronic monitoring. Vass warns that in the absence of a coherent criminal justice policy, these measures are unlikely to provide a solution. He assesses the challenges faced by probation and welfare services in having to develop punishment in the community and charts their possible consequences on those professions and the criminal justice system. Engaging, lively and well researched, Alternatives to Prison will be an essential textbook for
students of sociology, social policy, social work, criminology, youth and community work.
Practitioners and policymakers in criminal justice, probation and social work will also
benefit from its timely and important analysis.
Antony A. Vass is Acting Head of the School of Social Work at Middlesex Polytechnic. He has published numerous articles in academic journals on penal policy, probation and social work. He has previously published two books: Sentenced to Labour (1984) on community service by offenders; and AIDS: a Plague in Us (1986).
By assembling the material in this book, Tony Vass has performed a signal service. A penal policy which neglects that material forfeits any claim to rationality. Ken Pease-Professor of Criminology. University of Manchester
