Rethinking What Works with Offenders

Rethinking What Works with Offenders By Stephen Farrall Devon: Willan Publishing (2002) ISBN: 1-903240-96-5

Stephen Farrall is a research Fellow in the Department of Criminology, Keele University. This book presents the findings of his research on 'what works' in probation, as he attempts to open the 'black box' of probation in order to discover what it is about probation supervision that works and the reasons why offenders desist from crime.

Part 1 of the book includes three introductory chapters that outline the rationale for Farrall's investigation. In his opening chapter Farrall reviews two key areas of criminological research: the evaluation of criminal justice interventions and the study of the course of criminal careers. He highlights that, although previous studies might have addressed 'what works', they ignore how it works and why it works with some individuals but fails with others. In Chapter 2 Farrall highlights the limitations of research and the problems surrounding the literature on probation outcomes, such as implementation failures and non-replicability. Consequently there are no consistent results on 'what works', creating problems for those developing interventions and working with offenders. The readable style of this chapter provides good awareness of a recurring theme of the book. In Chapter 3 Farrall outlines the methodology of his study. He begins by detailing the six probation services from which the sample was selected, discussing the process of selecting and interviewing probationers and describing the methods of data collection...