ABSTRACT
The backdrop to the following discussion is the creation of the National Offender Management Service. This multi-agency arrangement is the most significant development for the criminal justice sector in recent years. Generally, despite an acknowledgement of the complexities that need to be addressed in establishing NOMS, I am arguing in its favour. It represents a necessary evolution in both a theoretical and a practical sense in the state and civil society's arrangements for punishment and rehabilitation. In particular I am arguing that these arrangements have the potential to rediscover the importance of a common humanity at the heart of an increasingly harsh penal process, via the formal involvement of a wider range of community based organizations.
