Circles of support and accountability: criminal justice volunteers as the 'Deliberative public'

Almond, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7441-069X, Bates, A. and Wilson, C. (2015) Circles of support and accountability: criminal justice volunteers as the 'Deliberative public'. British Journal of Community Justice, 13 (1). pp. 25-40. ISSN 1475-0279

Abstract/Summary

This paper provides a review of the role played by volunteers within one particular offender management and reintegration scheme in the United Kingdom. Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) draw on the expertise of volunteer members of the public to create supportive monitoring frameworks around sex offenders following their release from prison. The paper presents evidence as to the motivations of these volunteers, and argues that they play a crucial role in the success of the scheme, as they provide an instrumentally-useful form of reintegrative social contact to a socially-excluded offender population, and perform a symbolically important role as representatives of the wider community in taking ownership of offender management practices on behalf of the wider society. This is particularly significant in grounding those processes in the communicative practices of the social sphere, providing powerful reasons for intervention that reinforce the work that COSA do.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/40787
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Law
Publisher	De Montfort University/Sheffield Hallam University
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