There is a growing consensus that offender rehabilitation, prison regimes, and the treatment of offenders with special needs must be based on research, methods and experience that are effective, humane and related to individual, organisational, and social considerations. This authoritative, comprehensive and international handbook will fill this need, as a resource for advanced students and professional courses and for researchers and practitioners.

The Handbook provides an up-to-date review of current knowledge and best practice in the rehabilitation and treatment of offenders, in coomunity, prison and secure hospital settings. Major sections cover the rationale and objectives of treatment, risk assessment, the whole range of approaches to treatment (including behavioural/cognitive, family work, reasoning, rehabilitation, and anger management), and the assessment and treatment of various categories of offenders and problems (with detailed chapters that include child abuse, violence, mentally disordered offenders and sex offenders). A final section of the Handbook deals with different types of treatment settings - maximum security hospitals, residential settings, and in the community.

This important volume will be essential for prison and correctional services, forensic psychologists and psychiatrists and mental health nurses working with offenders, and probation and coummunity workers, and also for libraries serving academics and professionals in criminology, law and penal policy.

Clive Hollin, University of Leicester, UK.