Professor Rob Canton

Professor Rob Canton
Patron

Rob Canton is Emeritus Professor in Community and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, having retired from employment in the summer of 2022. Before joining De Montfort, he worked in the Probation Service for some 20 years in a number of different roles.

Rob has contributed to probation development and general penal reform in more than ten different countries, mostly in Europe.  He has acted as a ‘Short Term Expert’ in a number of EU funded projects (PHARE Programme) to develop penal policy and practice. His involvement has gone well beyond presentations in large meetings and has included detailed discussion with senior policy makers and managers in national penal systems, as well as some local practitioner training. He was co-opted  to the Council of Penological Cooperation in the Council of Europe to develop the European Probation Rules (2007 - 10) and again in 2015 - 2016 to revise the European Rules on Community Sanctions and Measures. He also acted as a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee in its Inquiry into the Role of the Probation Service (2010 - 11).

Rob has written a number of articles and book chapters, many about probation, although also about international work, policy transfer and the philosophy of punishment. He has co-edited two books, The Dictionary of Probation and Offender Management (with David Hancock: Willan Publishing 2007) and Policy Transfer in Criminal Justice: Crossing cultures, Breaking Barriers (with Mary Anne McFarlane: Palgrave Macmillan 2014). His book, Probation: Working with Offenders, was published by Routledge in 2011, and a second edition, Probation, written with Jane Dominey, came out at the end of 2017. More recently, he has tried to understand the meaning and significance of punishment, exploring these in two books: Why Punish? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Punishment (Palgrave Macmillan: 2017); and Punishment (in the series Key Ideas in Criminology: Routledge 2022).