#15625 - Pathways Into And Out Of Crime - Criminology

CSPS Supervision 4 – Pathways into and out of crime

Transforming Rehabilitation: A summary of evidence on reducing reoffending – Ministry of Justice (2014)

• For the first time in recent history, every offender released from custody will receive statutory supervision and rehabilitation in the community. We want to make sure that all those who break the law are not only punished, but also engage in rehabilitation.

• On 9 May, we published Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform. This document sets out the Government’s plans for transforming the way in which offenders are managed in the community in order to bring down reoffending rates.

  • Reforms will put in place a system that encourages innovation to improve outcomes. We are introducing new payment incentives for market providers to focus relentlessly on reforming offenders, giving providers flexibility to do what works and freedom from bureaucracy, but only paying them in full for real reductions in reoffending.

• To support organisations working with offenders, we have also launched the pilot Justice Data Lab.

  • This new service will support organisations, in particular the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, to understand their specific impact on reducing reoffending.

Reoffending and desistance

• Recent proven reoffending rates show that the proportion of adults reoffending within 12 months is as follows:

  • 58% of prisoners released from under 12 months’ custody.

  • 35% of prisoners released after 12 months or more in custody (excluding public protection and life sentences).

  • 34% of those starting a court order.

• Static factors, such as criminal history, age and gender, cannot be altered and can be among the strongest predictors of reoffending. Dynamic factors, such as education, employment and drug misuse, are amenable to change.

• While the same factors may be relevant for both men and women, the strength of their relationship with reoffending can vary.

• Dynamic factors:

  • Drug / alcohol misuse

  • Low self-control

  • Attitudes that support crime

  • Social networks

  • Lack of family and intimate relationships

  • Lack of employment

  • Suitable accommodations

• Study from ‘Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction’:

  • For offenders released from custody, the following directly related factors have been identified as being associated with an increased likelihood of offending:

    • Higher ‘Copas rates’ (these are scores based on the number of previous sanctions and time elapsed between current and first sanction).

    • Additional punishment while in prison (for example, as a result of breaking rules).

    • Being homeless or in temporary accommodation prior to custody.

    • Use of Class A drugs (ecstasy, LSD, heroin, crack cocaine, cocaine and methadone) after release.

    • Reporting regularly playing truant while at school.

    • Having an index offence that was acquisitive (robbery, burglary, theft and handling).

  • The following factors were directly associated with a reduced likelihood of reoffending:

    • First time in custody.

    • Employment in the 12 months before custody.

    • Reporting feeling worried about spending time in prison.

    • Being older (with each year of age being associated with a two per cent reduction in the odds of reoffending).

    • Longer sentences (greater than one year).

• Study by ‘Offender Management Community Cohort Study’:

  • For offenders on community sentences (Tiers 2–4*), the following factors were identified in preliminary analysis as independently associated with reoffending:

    • Being male.

    • Offenders identified by OGRS as being at higher risk of reoffending.

    • Having an index offence that was acquisitive (theft, burglary or fraud).

    • Being identified as having a drug use problem.

    • Starting a Drug, Alcohol or Mental Health Treatment Requirement.

    • Having a pro-criminal attitude.

    • Having short meetings with offender managers.

• Desistance describes process by which those engaged in a sustained pattern of offending give up crime.

• Desistance factors:

  • Getting older and maturing

  • Family and relationships

  • Sobriety

  • Employment

  • Hope and motivation

  • Having something to give to others

  • Having a place within a social group

  • Not having a criminal identity

  • Being believed in

Working effectively with offenders

• A study by Wood (2013) found that 30% of offenders who said they had an ‘excellent’ relationship with their offender manager reoffended, compared with 40% who said their relationship was ‘not very good’ or ‘bad’.

• There is evidence that supervision can reduce reoffending:

  • A recent study (Lai 2013), for example, found that offenders with zero or one previous convictions and released from custody on licence had a one-year reoffending rate between 14 and 17 percentage points lower than those released from custody not on licence.

• There is good evidence that, when quality assurance is taken seriously and programmes are implemented as designed, the intervention has a greater impact on reoffending (Lowenkamp, Latessa & Smith 2006 / Ladenberger & Lipsey 2005).

• Pilot programme has been used in Peterborough and Doncaster – providing support to prisoners on short sentences who would not have previously been subject to statutory supervision on release from custody.

Evidence on reducing reoffending

• Study by Ministry of Justice (2013):

  • Offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody had a higher one-year reoffending rate than similar, matched offenders receiving:

    • A community order, of 6.4 percentage points for 2010

    • A suspended sentence order, of 8.6 percentage points for 2010

    • A ‘court order’ (either a community order or a suspended order), of 6.8 percentage points for 2010.

  • Offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody also had a higher reoffending rate than offenders given an immediate custodial sentence of between one and four years. The difference was 12 percentage points for 2010.

• Study by Bewley (2012):

  • Adding a punitive requirement (unpaid work or a curfew) to a supervision requirement had no impact on the likelihood that the offender reoffended, but reduced the number of reoffences committed within the first year of the community order by 8.1 per cent. This effect was sustained over time, so that the number of offences committed over the two years following the start of the order was reduced by 7.5 per cent. It appeared that this effect was largely driven by the impact of curfew requirements, rather than unpaid work.

  • Adding a supervision requirement to a punitive requirement reduced the rate of reoffending one year after the start of the community order by 11.5 per cent, and the number of reoffences committed over this period by 12.7 per cent. It reduced the rate of reoffending in the two years after the start of the community order by 6.8 per cent, and the number of reoffences committed over this period by 8.7 per cent.

• There is good evidence that a wide range of drug interventions have a positive impact on reducing reoffending.

• Overall, there is currently insufficient evidence to determine the impact on reoffending of alcohol treatment for offenders.

  • There is, however, good evidence that alcohol-related interventions can help reduce hazardous drinking more generally.

• Currently, there is insufficient evidence to determine the impact on reoffending of various forms of help for offenders to find or sustain accommodation.

• There is mixed/promising evidence, mainly from the US, on the effectiveness of employment/education programmes in reducing reoffending.

  • Aos, Miller & Drake (2006) found modest but statistically significant reductions in recidivism.

• Mental health problems, including disorders such as depression and anxiety as well as more severe mental health problems such as psychosis and personality disorders, have been found to be more prevalent among offenders than the general population (Singleton 1998).

  • There is currently insufficient evidence to determine the impact on reoffending of diversion-based approaches for offenders with mental health problems.

• There is good evidence supporting the impact of cognitive skills programmes on reoffending. International reviews have found cognitive skills programmes have reduced reconviction rates by around eight (Wilson, Bouffard & Mackenzie 2005) to ten (Lipsey 2007) percentage points.

• There is good evidence that violence can be reduced through psychosocial interventions, such as anger and emotional management, developing interpersonal skills, and social problem solving (McGuire 2008).

• ‘There is some promising evidence that approaches focusing on family/intimate relationships may contribute to reducing reoffending among adults. This evidence is mainly in relation to family visits and home leave for prisoners (Bales & Mears 2008).

• There is currently insufficient evidence on the impact of reducing negative peer influences on adult reoffending.

• Evidence on the effectiveness of restorative justice conferencing is currently mixed/promising.

  • Overall, restorative justice seems most effective when it follows the face-to-face conferencing model and when it is applied to certain offences and types of offender.

• The evidence as a whole suggests that mentoring may be most beneficial when it begins in prison and lasts beyond release. Mentoring is also most likely to be effective when the relationship is maintained over time rather than consisting of just one or two sessions.

  • A good quality UK study (Maguire, Holloway, Liddle, Gordon, Gray & Smith 2010) found that participants in a mentoring scheme in Wales who received between two and six contacts after release were reconvicted at a significantly...