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Book Review: Anthony Bottoms, Loraine Gelsthorpe and Sue Rex (eds) Community Penalties: Change and Challenges Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing, 2001. 255 pp. (incl. index). £30.00 ISBN 1—903240—49—2 (hbk)

Community Penalties is a book of 12 edited chapters and a lengthy Appendix of conclusions based upon presentations and discussions by participants at a small conference held in Cambridge, England, in June 2000. The 24th Cropwood Round Table Conference and the ensuing book were designed to examine past and current events and issues in the area of community penalties, and to stimulate reflection and debate about how they might be developed in future. In an exceptionally clear and well-written introductory chapter, the editors describe the book’s goals, offer a definition of community penalties, and summarize a number of key transitions and transformations affecting their theoretical, legal, political and practical development over the last 25 years. Between this opening, and a final chapter of concluding reflections, also by the editors, 10 single-author chapters examine community penalties from a variety of perspectives, including: early and recent history and social change contexts; critical analysis of the cognitive-behavioral and evidence-based practice dimensions of the ‘what works’ movement; questions of accountability to agencies, victims, community and offenders; the growing role of technology; and, implications for debates about public safety and community and restorative justice. Although the book focuses predominantly on the UK, it should be a ‘mustread’ for audiences in the United States also, especially for policy-makers and practitioners in community corrections. Several of the authors make explicit connections between US and UK developments, and many of the general recommendations and ideas apply with equal force to community corrections on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition, in a chapter on the sometimes conflicting and sometimes complementary ideas of public safety and restorative justice, the only US contributor, Michael Smith, offers a bluntly provocative assessment of the lack of credibility of American probation in the ‘penal market place’, and the daunting changes in resources and strategic redirection that will B O O K R E V I E W S