Introduction

Public engagement is at the heart of not only criminology, but all social sciences. In recent years, criminology has developed a renewed interest in social engagement, with this professional–public dialogue being seen as essential to developing a rounded public interest in the discipline as well as related policies and practices (Loader and Sparks, 2010). This chapter will discuss the importance of having a rounded debate about criminological issues and why it is important that the public, or publics (Kitzinger, 2004), fully comprehend the reality of a range of offences, offenders, victims and state responses.

There are a number of different explanations for why people offend, including their biology, social relationships, psychology and personality; however, there is no one explanation, as all people, and therefore offenders, are heterogeneous (Towl and Crighton, 2010). The aetiology of offending behaviour is essential in understanding the heterogeneous nature of not only offending, but also how offenders can be rehabilitated and reintegrated. Offender management has increasingly become a community issue in recent years and this will only continue in the current era of the ‘Big Society’. It is important, therefore, for the public at large and communities in particular to understand offenders and their offending behaviour so that they can assist with their reintegration. In the UK, one approach to offender reintegration and management that has been steadily growing in popularity, contrary to the current climate of state-/community-sanctioned punitiveness, is restorative justice. This chapter will discuss restorative justice as a means of reintegrating offenders, particularly stigmatised offenders, back into communities and how this fits in with the current Coalition government's social and criminal justice policies. In order to give the chapter a sense of grounding, it will focus on two offender populations, youth offenders and sex offenders, as they are prominent in current criminal justice policy and are seen as problematic offender populations by the media and public at large.

Current approaches to offender punishment and management

The social construction and reflexive modernisation of ideas around crime and punishment have been directly influenced by government policy, with certain agendas being pushed at different stages (Alcock et al, 2008), often in knee-jerk fashion, in response to real or perceived public attitudes.