Correctional Policies and Practices in a Post-Modern World

Crimes are already undertaken as being part of the everyday life of any society. How are crimes defined and perceived, how are crimes punished and what are the methods used to rehabilitate the persons who commit crimes are questions that all the societies at all times have tried to answer. For some time, the Western countries reacted in the spirit of the logic proposed by the so-called penal welfare (Garland, 2001). After the 80s, the social reaction seems to be dictated by neo-liberal policies in the USA, but also in a growing number of European countries. This new penal philosophy is reflected in more punitive penal practices, in high rates of incarceration and in the reconstruction of probation practices. Meanwhile, a number of pressures are coming from the field of restorative practices, in response to the lack of interest of traditional justice towards the victims.

This issue of the Social Work Review is dedicated to all these topics. The purpose is to offer professionals an overview of trends in terms of post-modern correctional policies and practices, and a space to discuss the main results that have come from of the numerous projects, programs and researches that have been made in the past 30 years.

We welcome contributions from researchers, social workers and professional in the correctional field, from Romania and abroad. We accept original articles, empirical studies and meta-analyses, in Romanian and English.

Authors are asked to send their manuscripts at the email address revassoc@yahoo.com before March 31, 2012. The editorial team will make a first selection of manuscripts before sending them to two referees. We mention that Social Work Review has a double blind peer-review policy. Authors should prepare the manuscripts according to the standards available on the journal’s website. We do not accept printed manuscripts. Questions and additional information requests can be addressed to the editors Ioan Durnescu (idurnescu@gmail.com) or Anamaria Szabo (ana.szabo@gmail.com).

Important dates:
Deadline for manuscript submission: June 31, 2012
Publication: September 2012