Company HistoryWaterside Press was founded in 1989 as an independent, niche publisher, focusing on crime, justice and penal affairs. We aim to produce items of value to a range of people concerned with the courts, policing, prisons, probation and youth work, human rights, criminology, sociology and research. Our goal is to ensure our books are thorough yet accessible and provide practitioners and newcomers with the information they need.
Our spheres of interest include the interaction between law and order and race, discrimination, gender, drugs, social exclusion and popular culture - as well as, e.g. public safety issues, restorative justice, capital punishment, deaths in custody, the rehabilitation of offenders and 'going straight', new initiatives, policy-making and the socio-legal aspects of the democratic process.
Some examples of our highly acclaimed publications include: The New Ministry of Justice, Pit of Shame, Restorative Justice in Prisons, The Geese Theatre Handbook, Police Leadership in the Twenty-First Century, The Sentence of the Court, The Magistrates' Bench Handbook, Introduction to the Magistrates' Court, The Prisons Handbook and various ground-breaking works on aspects of the Criminal Justice System (CJS). Many of the 200 or so Waterside Press titles in print have been associated with debates or campaigns leading to change; others used as key texts by the official agencies. A major project to create an encyclopaedia, The Waterside Press A to Z of Criminal Justice drawing on this background is ongoing and this work is now scheduled for publication in early 2008.
Various Waterside Press titles have been translated into foreign languages or braille.
Founding partner and editor-in-chief Bryan Gibson worked on the inside of the CJS as a barrister, justices’ clerk and contributor to journals and newspapers including the Criminal Law Review, New Law Journal, Law Society's Gazette, Community Care, Inside Time, The Times, Guardian, Sunday Express and other newspapers. He is a former co-editor of the weekly court journal Justice of the Peace (Butterworths) and has also written for BBC TV, and The Stage (as a reviewer of plays). Other highlights of his career include devising a blueprint for Unit Fines which reached the statute book in 1991 before being abandoned in a notorious U-turn; the development of 'custody-free zones' for juveniles (1980s); and advising the Magistrates’ Association on the legal parameters of its Sentencing Guidelines (1990s). He has also been associated with a number of campaigns and has written over 20 books under the Waterside Press imprint and that of Barry Rose.
Dawn Gibson's background is in financial services and management.
'Waterside' relates to the Itchen Navigation on which the original Waterside Press main office was situated.
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