Cutting Prison Overcrowding in Great Britain

Abstract

There is a wide range of projects for dealing with offenders in the com munity, but strongly punitive attitudes receive wide publicity. These at titudes are shared by many working-class people, although the most alienated are often anti-authority. Pressure for change has sometimes come from within the system; voluntary organizations such as the Howard League and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders have also worked for reform, as have individual volunteers. Forces impeding correctional reform include the public, although most people generally can be persuaded to give a new project a try; and the workings and financial structure of the correctional system itself.