Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated / Progress in Mathematics (PDF)

This important, lucid book burns with compassion for those incarcerated in prisons, seeking to find authentic, realistic ways of enhancing humanity and hope in constrained, inadequate environments. Beedon's well-researched text uniquely illuminates the situation of the many prisoners still held under indeterminate sentences in the UK, some of whom are encountered in their own words. It will be vital reading for prison chaplains and pastoral theorists as well as politicians, policy makers and those involved in justice systems around the world. Passion, analysis, realism and imagination meet here to create a salutary, inspiring read for anyone wanting to extend their understanding of prisons, criminals, pastoral care and sensitive research - together with our common human frailty and potential.

-Stephen Pattison, Emeritus Professor of Religion, Ethics and Practice, University of Birmingham, UK

This book is a work of profound humane regard. It takes the loss of hope as its starting point and finds its way through the dark to a place of possibility. The author bears witness to men serving indeterminate prison sentences for public protection. Using 'found poems', and his own compassion, he describes the men's suffering, some ways forward, and a much-needed form of pastoral care.