- Contributors to this book review developments in social work practice, locating them in the context of changes in U.K. penal policy. David Smith examines the relationship between policy and practice in the Probation Service, illustrating how policy has often been preceded by practice initiatives from within the Service. George Mair argues that the past 10 years have been a period of unprecedented change, characterised by greater accountability and central control. Gill McIvor describes developments within social work departments in Scotland, particularly the introduction of full central government funding of statutory social work services and the development of associated national objectives and standards. Breidge Gadd describes the Northern Ireland Probation Board as characterized by its commitment to a range of community supervision programmes, by its customer-oriented service delivery, and by its links between probation officers and their communities. Anne Worrals reports on gender-stereotyping of women by the courts -- women are more likely to be referred for reports, and more likely to be placed on probation. Duncan Lawrence illustrates how white probation officers' explanations of offending by black clients frequently differ from those offered by the clients themselves, and discusses how appropriate groupwork provision for black and other minority clients can be developed. Bryan Williams and Anne Creamer describe the increased use of prediction tools, despite the fact that aggregate measures are inaccurate in predicting individual behaviour. Mary Baker discusses the development of social work services for sex offenders, and concludes that cognitive-behavioural methods are more successful. George Mair describes and discusses the development of the intensive probation movements in England and the United States and -- drawing on Home Office evaluations of UK projects -- concludes that intensive probation has been generally successful. Hine and Thomas examine the extent to which Community Service orders have met the diverse aims proposed for them. Tony Martin reviews the development of reparation and mediation programs in various parts of the world, and comments on the difficulties involved in evaluating them. Brian Williams looks at the growth of social work services in prisons -- particularly anger management and sex offender programs -- and comments on the uncertainty of future prison-based probation work. In the last chapter, Peter Raynor argues for the development of evaluative research methodologies which focus on the process of intervention and which draw upon a range of outcome measures.