ABSTRACT
It is coincidental that the annual cost of reoffending in England and Wales is roughly equivalent to the cost incurred in hosting the 2012 Olympics, 1 but it serves as a stark reminder of the problematic scale of reoffending: in the year 2012, over 86,000 offenders were discharged following a prison sentence (Ministry of Justice, 2013a), 2 and latest figures confirm that approximately half of all offenders released from custody will reoffend within a year 3 (Ministry of Justice, 2013b). It is not surprising, then, that reoffending by those released from prison is seen as a significant problem within the criminal justice system, recognised with government reforms packaged as a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ (Ministry of Justice, 2012a) which reflect an increased focus on rehabilitation processes in the management of offenders.
