Shadd Maruna - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Who Owns Resettlement? 6sarcasm is literally dripping off the page at this point] just where I may obtainappropriate guidance and information? Surely somewhere in the UK, there must besomeone/somebody who has a vague idea of what they perceive to be an acceptableresettlement plan.He finishes the letter with a postscript ―I already have a copy of PSO 2300-Resettlement,along with Prison Rule 52-Resettlement‖, just so I don‘t try to fob him off with the officialbumf.Unfortunately, I couldn‘t help him much. I told him that the UK Association of ChiefOfficers of Probation‘s recently defined ‗resettlement‘ as:A systematic and evidenced-based process by which actions are taken to work withthe offender in custody and on release, so that communities are better protected fromharm and re-offending is significantly reduced. It encompasses the totality of workwith prisoners, their families and significant others in partnership with statutory andvoluntary organisations (cited in Morgan and Owers 2001, p. 12, italics added)So, basically, resettlement is everything and nothing, and the only theory behind it is that ithas to involve stuff that works.The biggest risk about the use of meaningless words is that they run the risk of connotingdifferent things to different audiences. The example I always give on this is what happenedwith the ―reentry‖ discussion in the US. In 1999, the Clinton Administration had proposeda relatively large-scale effort to address some of the needs of people coming out of prisonunder the banner of the ―Young Offender Reentry Initiative‖ (OJP 2000). Somewhat