Rehabilitation

Desistence Paradigm

This shift of lenses has become a core element of the desistance paradigm and one of the major contrasts to the correctional or ‘medical model’ model of change (see Bazemore and Stinchcomb 2004).

McNeill (2006: 46), for instance, explains this ‘desistance paradigm’ thus:

‘Put simply, the implication is that offender management services need to think of themselves less as providers of correctional treatment (that belongs to the expert) and more as supporters of desistance processes (that belong to the desister).’

Likewise, Porporino (2010: 80) writes: ‘The desistance paradigm suggests that we might be better off if we allowed offenders to guide us instead, listened to what they think might best fit their individual struggles out of crime, rather than continue to insist that our solutions are their salvation.’

Examples in Practice

presently enforced during incarceration, in the form of training programmes and more recently- cognitive skills courses (Reasoning and rehabilitation: Enhanced Thinking Skills) (Clarkson, 2001).

Effectiveness of rehabilitation in reducing recidivism

A range of studies show that rehabilitative programmes can only be effective if the prisoner wants to participate.

Integrated Offender Management

'Payment by Results'

Breaking the Cycle (2010): defining how we will pay providers for rehabilitating offenders- these will manage 236,000 low and medium risk offenders.

Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 (ORA):

After coming into force on 1 February 2015. The most significant change under the ORA is to extend statutory supervision after release to the 45,000 offenders a year who are released from short prison sentences of less than 12 months.

Before the changes, this group receive no statutory supervision after they are released.

Despite the fact that this group of offenders have the highest reoffending rates of any group:

Almost 60% of adult offenders released from short prison sentences in the year to March 2013 went on to reoffend within the next 12 months: a total of 16,719 re-offenders committing 85,047 further offences.

What is Payment By Results (PbR)?

Webster (2017) argues,“the MoJ made it clear from the outset that the primary purpose of TR was to reduce reoffending and that contracts would be let within a payment by results approach."

Basis for PbR requires CRC's to:

Manage the sentence for a Community Order and Suspended Sentence Order

Deliver a Supervision Requirement

Deliver an Unpaid Work Requirement

Deliver an Accredited Programme

Deliver other interventions

An 'Outcome-based-payment Scheme'

Payment only for achieving demonstrable results, with clawback available for underperforming and higher payments for further improvements over minimum requirement

Large financial deductions / termination for increase in re-offending rates

National Audit Office (2015) evaluation of operational PbR Pilot Schemes between 2010 and 2015 (precursors to Transforming Rehabilitation), which were suspended due to the national roll-out of TR:

- HMP Doncaster

Completion of these initial pilots could have revealed the areas of contention and concern we are now seeing, before the national roll-out.

The MoJ undertook the pilots to inform later decisions about a possible nationwide scheme yet they decided to roll the scheme out nationally before the pilots’ results were fully known.

- HMP Peterborough

HMP Leeds

MoJ tendered contracts for a pilot offender rehabilitation programme but closed the competition without a successful bid after all but 1 of the 6 potential providers decided not to compete.

The firms reported that the model for the pilot was unworkable.

This was despite MoJ taking steps, before tendering, to understand providers’ appetite for risk in taking on a PbR contract, including  engaging  in  a  process  of  competitive  dialogue  with  potential  bidders.

Impact of TR Policy

Inspection Findings:
Between 2014 & 2016, 5 separate inspections noted some areas of progress but highlighted persistent concerns.

CRC’s need to pay more attention to the quality of work they are delivering.

less rehabilitative work was being done under new probation system.

There was a lack of compliance to complete unpaid work.

There was a lack of Through-the-Gate support

Through-the-Gate

Inspectors found that overall, services were poor and there was little to commend.

Too many prisoners reached their release date without their immediate resettlement needs having been met or even recognised.

None of the prisoners in their sample (86 cases) had been helped into employment by Through the Gate services

Some of the new services proposed in the bids for contracts had not been implemented

Importance of Piloting

The NAO (2015) report suggests that piloting can help commissioners manage risks by testing their scheme and enabling design weaknesses to be corrected prior to full-scale roll-out.

Yet, there are many examples of PbR schemes where implementation has been rushed, with very few being piloted or phased in advance of full roll-out.

This is all evidence pointing to PbR needing to be thought out carefully and a phased approach.

Pilots should have ran for 6-7 years

Risky and Costly

TR has been a risky and costly upheaval of the Offender Management arrangements.

According to Transforming Rehabilitation what is needed is:


'a system where one provider has overall responsibility for getting to grips with an offender's life management skills, coordinating a package of support to deliver better results.'

There was such a system already in place. The Probation Service was directly responsible for the supervision of the vast majority of individuals serving sentences in the community. It also undertook the supervision of those who received prison sentences of more than 12 months.

Unnecessary

Unnecessary resort to short prison sentences, instead of introducing the costly community supervision of those given short prison sentences?

People coming out of prison often need help and support to:
find accommodation;
secure benefits to which they are entitled;
find a job;
enrol in education;
access health services,

Prevent people going into prison for short periods, with all the inevitable disruption and harm it causes to them and their families.

The purpose of punishment that is rehabilitation

What does it aim to achieve in terms of an expressive function of punishment?

A ‘Constructive’ justice system

to adopt approaches to punishment that focus on the offender in an attempt to bring about some beneficial change.

A ‘Deconstructive’ justice system

in the administration of legal sanctions, to deprive offenders or take something away from the offender such as freedom.

The Use of Rehabilitation Historically

the use of rehabilitative punishment declined during the 1970’s and 80’s, which brought an extreme rejection of the ‘treatment model’,

What Works?

The negative findings of a study conducted by Martinson (1974) entitled “What Works?” brought about the decline

Nothing Works

high level of media coverage, resulted in an overall acknowledgement and acceptance across international jurisdictions of program failure.

Decline in Rehabilitation

From the mid 1980’s, the U.K. government tried to fashion a cost-effective justice system

Aims:

What is the question asking?

Objectives

How might you answer the question?

Context

In what context does the question relate to?

Content

What/Which research, studies, philosophies, theories, evidence have you analysed, evaluated, explored, discussed in an attempt to answer the question.

Reasoning

Recap

Aim

Subtopic

Objective

Main points of analysis

Main points of evaluation