This book provides a comparative analysis of the process of breach across ten different European jurisdictions by identifying and elaborating a number of key analytical themes through which the different systems can be compared and evaluated. It is informed by and hopes to advance the research activities of the COST Action IS1106 on Offender Supervision in Europe, particularly the Action’s work on developing new comparative methodologies to examine the process of decision-making involved in the breaching of offenders for non-compliance.

This volume consists of country chapters and thematic chapters. Analyses are based on exhaustive reviews of the literature available in each jurisdiction as well as the results of an empirical pilot study to provide a unique and valuable insight into current practice as well as enhancing our understanding of the contingencies and vagaries of the processes of breach as they exist in both civil and common law European jurisdictions. The key themes and emerging concerns that are explored include: the roles and responsibilities of the different actors involved in the breach process; the degree and nature of discretion exercised by decision-makers; and legitimacy, due process and procedural requirements of breach processes both from a pan-European and from a comparative perspective.

This book will be of interest to criminal lawyers and criminologists, policy makers, criminal justice practitioners, probation workers and students of criminal justice studies across Europe. Comparative insight into the decision-making processes of breach across Europe will also be of interest to American, Canadian and Australian audiences seeking comparisons with their own systems.

This book makes a unique contribution to the internationalisation of criminological knowledge about gender and desistance through a qualitative cross-national exploration of the female route out of crime in Sweden and England. By situating the female desistance journey in diverse penal cultures, the study addresses two major gaps in the literature: the neglect of critical explorations of gender in desistance-related processes, and the lack of internationally comparative perspectives on the lived experience of desistance.

Grounded in a feminist methodology – underpinned by a critical humanist perspective – this book draws on 24 life-story narrative interviews with female desisters across Sweden and England. The discussion covers departure points, qualitative experiences of criminal justice, as well as barriers and ‘ladders’ in the female route out. While some cross-national symmetry is detected, particularly in the areas of victimisation and issues around short custodial sentences, overall the findings indicate that diverse macro-processes and models, especially in terms of ‘inclusive’ versus ‘exclusive’ penal cultures, effectually ‘trickle down’ to the women in this study and produce different micro-experiences of desistance.

Providing new qualitative evidence of the ‘Nordic Exceptionalism thesis’, this book finds that, comparatively, the Swedish model offers a macro-context, supported and reflected in allied meso-practices, which is more conducive to the formation of female desistance narratives. This unique comparative study marks a step-change in desistance literature and will be essential reading for those engaged in the disciplines of penology, rehabilitation, gender and crime, and offender management