Description
A book by a leading exponent of work with mentally disordered offenders charting key events in a fifty year career, which will be of particular interest to criminal psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers, social workers, judges, magistrates, criminologists, and all students of crime and punishment. From a relatively modest background, Herschel Prins rose to become a leading authority on forensic work with offenders suffering from mental disorder. In this frank and heartfelt account, he traces his journey from ‘main grade’ probation officer, Home Office civil servant, trainer and inspector to top level positions within academic institutions (notably at Leicester University and Loughborough University), with the Parole Board, key nationwide committees, inquiries and beyond. His ‘reflections’ on a life geared to enhancing knowledge and understanding in this sphere contain unique insights for practitioners and general readers alike – and words of wisdom for the Criminal Justice System as it enters the second decade of the 21st century.
Reviews
‘Provides students with a critical insight into the structural dimensions of criminal justice/healthcare practice’: Paul Taylor, University of Chester
Praise for Herschel Prins
‘In a field prone to disappointment and disillusion he continues to stimulate and inspire’: Sir Michael Day OBE
‘I can think of no-one more instrumental at the pivotal meeting point of crime, criminal justice and mental disorder’: Andrew Rutherford
‘A monument to unassertive sanity’: Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC
‘One of my heroes’: David Wilson
From the Foreword
‘Herschel has spent his professional life working with the troubled and the troublesome, the unloved (and the often unlovely) where the consistent theme of his work has been to combine the practical with an awareness of what is possible when one works with mentally disordered offenders. Why choose that life and these clients? What demands has that choice made on him, his family, his colleagues?… Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know… sets out to answer these – and other – questions’: David Wilson
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