ABSTRACT
Those who work primarily with offenders, in the probation, youth offending and prison services, have increasingly had to pay attention to the needs and rights of victims in the period since the publication of the first Victim's Charter in 1990. This chapter begins by briefly discussing the current legislative and policy framework which requires the staff of these agencies to do such work, before moving on to review some current policy debates, consider the skills and techniques needed by practitioners to do this work effectively, and finally look at some broader issues about how and why certain interventions are used and their limitations and potential dangers.
