ABSTRACT
Serious further offence reviews have referred to a lack of adequate supervision in the management of high-risk offenders (HMIP 2006a, 2006b), and subsequent inspection reports identify failures in procedures required for assessing and managing high-risk offenders (HMIP 2006a, 2006b). The public discourse that generally follows these reviews demands ‘tougher’ and more ‘rigorous’ supervision (Travis 2006), and The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) talks of ‘tough’ community sentences (2011). The discourse uses the language of ‘toughness’, ‘tightening up of rules and standards’ and ‘undue leniency’, implying that what is needed is greater punitiveness, surveillance and control, with little scope for any alternative discourse to address the potential for engagement, change, rehabilitation and reform.
