ABSTRACT
While respectfully heeding relevant international milestones in the evolution of rehabilitation, the primary focus of the chapter will be on some important, interesting, and, in some cases, forgotten efforts to assist the rehabilitation of those people with a history of offending in England and Wales. Where relevant, account will be taken of the influence of research findings, but because of the uncertainties surrounding the newly created privatized world of CRCs (Community Rehabilitation Companies) it begins with an examination of four (if not unremarkable certainly unoriginal) propositions: first, that identity is as problematic and complex as the individual it is ascribed to; second, that the number of causal theories of crime is only equalled by the number of attendant uncertainties; third, that invariably personal change is only partial, often indiscernible, and always slow and incremental; and finally, that rehabilitation, partly because of the preceding factors, is a contentious concept both in definition and in substance.
