Prevention of Reoffending

The need to prevent convicted prisoners and other offenders from reoffending constitutes a major challenge for both criminal justice and penitentiary systems. Reoffending rates are considerable (in many instances they are even high) while the issue is tremendously complicated. Rehabilitation - sometimes described as resocialization, reintegration, or treatment - is an important tool for the prevention of reoffending, but has clearly become less self-evident in many jurisdictions in recent decades. This volume focuses on the value of restoring offenders to a useful life, from the perspectives of prisoners, their family, society, the tax-payer, prison staff and administration, and victims, as well as from a criminological viewpoint. Notwithstanding these actual values of rehabilitation measures, their application alone may not be sufficient to prevent someone from reoffending. This particularly applies to high risk offenders, i.e. those who pose a substantial risk of further serious offending, such as sex offenders, terrorists, and members of organized criminal groups. The book considers measures to deal with high risk offenders during and after their sentence, and the arguments for and against their use. Prevention of Reoffending contains 14 essays written in English language text and 10 essays written in French. The English contributions include: Obligations and Means to Prevent Reoffending: Introduction, Context, and Conclusions * The Value of Rehabilitation to Prisoners * The Value of Rehabilitation to the Prisoner's Family * The Value of Rehabilitation to Society * The Value of Rehabilitation to the Tax-payer * The Value of Rehabilitation to the Prison Administration * The Justification for Taking Measures to Predict Offending/Reoffending and to Manage Risk * The Justification for Taking Measures to Predict Offending/Reoffending and Manage Risk: A Theoretical Perspective. The View of a Human Rights Lawyer * The Relevance of the Risk of Reoffending in Determining the Type and the Length of Sentences: A Comparative Criminal Law Perspective * The "Other" Death Penalty: Life in Prison * Managing the Risk Posed by Offenders after the Expiry of Sentence: The British Experience * Community Measures to Deal with High Risk Offenders at the Periphery of the Justice System * Dealing with High Risk Offenders: General Synthesis and Conclusions * The International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation: History and Purpose (Series: International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation - Vol. 45)