ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine relationships and their significance within penal practice and promote the investigation and facilitation of therapeutic relationships within offender rehabilitation. Therapeutic relationships have been somewhat overlooked at the expense of ‘harder’ measures of success, such as recidivism, and the importance of therapeutic relationships has been largely ignored in government policy. However, it has been acknowledged that the relationship between an offender and criminal justice practitioner is significant and can play a role in supporting desistance and promoting offender growth. This chapter will consider the current penal climate in England and Wales and turn to the literature to present an argument for climate change. At a time that is becomingly increasingly punitive in nature towards offenders, a climate of control is challenged and relational work is supported on both theoretical and applied grounds.
