ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on contemporary residential work with offenders, and draw heavily on the accounts of hostel workers in order to consider how actual policies translate into 'grassroots' work. It also focuses in particular on the impact of the publication National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community or National Standards as they are usually known for obvious reasons! These were first introduced in 1992 and subsequently revised in 1995, and again in 2000. The 1995 version of National Standards states that: The purpose of approved hostels is to provide an enhanced level of supervision to enable certain bailees and offenders to remain under supervision in the community. Strict enforcement of hostel rules and conditions is regarded as one dimension of enhanced supervision. National Standards states that each hostel should have a set of rules detailing the requirements and restrictions on residents when they are on the premises, including the hostel grounds and any cluster properties.
