Mentoring: crossing boundaries with care?: Helena Gosling and Gill Buck consider mentoring within a criminal justice context

There is growing enthusiasm for mentoring as a criminal justice intervention. Indeed there is a stated policy aim to offer a mentor to every person leaving prison (Grayling, 2012). The idea is reminiscent of the abolitionist inspired radical community interventions of the 1970s (Dronfield, 1980). It is also appealing to policy makers concerned with austerity measures and opening up the justice ‘market to a diverse range of rehabilitation providers’, given that most mentors are volunteers (Ministry of Justice, 2014).