The Role of Food in Resettlement and Rehabilitation: Good Food and Good Lives

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Julie Parsons (University of Plymouth, UK) Kevin Wong (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

The Role of Food in Resettlement and Rehabilitation

Good Food and Good Lives

Julie Parsons (University of Plymouth, UK), Kevin Wong (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

$305

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Routledge
30 June 2025

Social welfare & social services; Rehabilitation of offenders; Dietetics & nutrition; Mental health services

Series: Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice

Exploring the role of food in enabling people with convictions to live a ‘good life’, this book examines the tangible ways in which the growing, cooking and eating together of food has the potential to be both transformative and small-steps incremental in facilitating desistance journeys for people with convictions.

At its most reductive, food sustains us physically, it’s the fuel which keeps us alive. Of course, emotionally, culturally and socially it does more than that. This edited book addresses an under-researched area of resettlement and rehabilitation which has real-world application to policy and practice in criminal justice and related areas such as mental health, physical health, employment and education. Importantly, given the relatability of food growing, cooking and eating to the wider public, it offers opportunities to connect the desistance journeys and lives of people with convictions to the wider public.

The Role of Food in Resettlement and Rehabilitation will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, social work, and food studies. It is also important reading for government policy makers in criminal justice; and health care, social policy, and criminal justice practitioners including prison governors, social workers and providers of services for people with convictions in custody and community.

Edited by: Julie Parsons (University of Plymouth UK), Kevin Wong (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781032448480
ISBN 10: 1032448482
Series: Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 30 June 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Julie Parsons is Associate Professor in Sociology and Criminology. Since 2015 she has conducted a series funded research projects at a resettlement scheme for criminal justice affected people, establishing the PeN project (https://penprojectlandworks.org/) there in 2016. She is passionate about the power of everyday foodways in bringing people together. Kevin Wong is Reader in Community Justice and Associate Director, Policy Evaluation and Research Unit, Manchester Metropolitan University. He is Editor of the British Journal of Community Justice, Director of the Manchester International Crime and Justice Film Festival, and an Associate Member of the UK Ministry of Justice Corrections Services Accreditation and Advisory Panel.

Reviews for The Role of Food in Resettlement and Rehabilitation: Good Food and Good Lives

In this excellent edited book Julie Parsons and Kevin Wong explore the contribution of food and its associated practices in helping individuals to live meaningful and productive lives following their involvement with the criminal justice system. Their use of the Good Lives Model as an overarching conceptual framework is strikingly original and resonates beautifully with its insistence that effective human agency depends as much on our embodiment as a capacity for reflection and planning. Professor Tony Ward, PhD, DipClinPsyc, FRSNZ. Developer of the Good Lives Model Good Food and Good Lives is a collective labour of love, curated by two outstanding scholars of lived experiences of justice. It is a groundbreaking collection about pioneers in our midst who are quietly building solidarity and making communities more just and liveable for all. Professor Mary Corcoran, Keele University Until now, extraordinarily little has been written about leaving behind the prison’s very unusual and often impoverished ‘foodscape’ and re-entering social worlds with different possibilities and problems in which food plays a vital part. Putting it more simply, food really matters for rehabilitation and reintegration! Professor Fergus McNeill, University of Glasgow