Last week I attended a roundtable event at which lots of policy and practice people (and a couple of academics, but no ex-prisoners) were trying to grapple with some of the challenges of resettlement and reintegration — and what would need to change in terms of structures and practices to better support ex-prisoners in their efforts to desist from crime.
It was an interesting conversation — lots of pioneering projects were represented, and lots of practical problems were identified. We all recognised some pretty obvious ways in which we set up people to fail — like short term prisoners who often lose their tenancies whilst in custody (and sometimes lose furniture and belongings), leave prison with a tiny discharge grant and then wait weeks for benefits and months for suitable accommodation, while struggling to access health services perhaps having been de-registered by their GPs when inside, and who are unable to secure work because of their criminal records. Even where we do provide services to them, we tend to expect them, just having navigated the disruption of incarceration, to then steer their way through a maze of different services, usually offered 9-5, Monday to Friday, usually expecting to offer an office-based service, usually expecting the ‘client’ to make all the running.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but one person at the meeting tellingly lamented the fact that ex-prisoners’ needs are so ‘complex’ (referring particularly to women). Well, yes and no, I think. Yes, prisoners may have plenty of human needs, and those may have been unmet for a very long time, leading to all sorts of related problems and difficulties. But ‘no’ in the sense that they are the same human needs that pre-occupy everyone else.
It’s certainly complicated to try to meet ex-prisoners’ needs adequately so as to support their (re)integration into society, but maybe the problem is not that the needs are too complex but that the services are too simple. In a quite different meeting today, I had the chance to listen to a former senior civil servant who lamented and tried to tackle the way that government departments tend to develop silo mentalities. A bit like professions, or like academic disciplines, they naturally develop expertise in and become pre-occupied with their part of the business of government (or public service, or social science). The consequence is the all-too-familiar failure to deliver joined up government, or multi-disciplinary working, or interdisciplinary research. In resettlement practice that becomes the failure to meet people’s needs as they find them, to tackle their problems with them, as and when and how they experience them, to support them to find their own ways to flourish not just in terms of health, or wellbeing, or recovery, or desistance, or human development, or in family life, or as citizens, or as political actors, but in all of these senses simultaneously.
Most of us don’t live tidy lives, neatly packaged into discrete components that individual service providers can, well, service. We are a bit more complex than that… and we need access to and support from services than can meet us as and where we are, and as and when we need them. But have we the wit, the will and pockets deep enough to develop resettlement services that can function in that way? Imagine a 24-7-365, one-stop shop providing a multi-professional ‘transitions’ service for ex-prisoners. Imagine that ex-prisoners helped to design, deliver and evaluate its services. Imagine that they were both service providers and service users. Sounds risky? Sounds expensive? Perhaps… but maybe less risky and less expensive than the alternatives.
Discovering Desistance 
Thank you for this post. So much academic and policy discussion centres on the ‘needs of offenders’, without ever considering that ‘they’ are just like ‘us’, and maybe their needs are not so different – they are complicated by the disruption of prison, by the lack of certain skills or obstacles to opportunities but otherwise pretty straightforward. This could be simply addressed by the inclusion of ex-prisoners in this discourse. Why doesn’t it happen?
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Hi Rachel,
You are on the money here – we have a false dichotomy of ‘them’ and ‘us’. False because ‘we’ could become ‘them’ and prior to being ‘them’ they were ‘us’ and will become so again….got that!
The problem is that ‘offenders’ are seen as one big homogenous group to which it is easy to apply labels such as ‘dangerous’ and ‘risky’. They are few official discourses that speak in favour of helping them or treating them with anything but contempt (even the thought of prisoners voting makes the PM ‘physically ill’).
The flaw in thinking here is that no-one has ever been an ‘offender’ for 100% of their lives – for most criminality is a fleeting and temporary thing, something that people engage in in small bursts or even in a one-off moment of stupidity. For instance, there were 8 million people on the Home Office Offenders Index in 2009 – it simply can’t be the case that they are all actively involved in criminal activity. The country would be in a state of perpetual anarchy. Yet, political (and public) discourse labels people as ‘criminal’ and adds a stigma to their past behaviour which can bar them from employment and ensure their continued social exclusion.
When I hear talk of ‘meeting offenders needs’ it often sounds to me as though criminal justice professionals are talking about caring for a rare species of tropical fish. It’s as though not carefully assessing these needs and planning for them extensively will upset some delicate equilibrium causing the ‘offender’ to spontaneously recidivate and harm everyone they come into contact with. This sort of thinking pre-supposes that somehow ‘offenders’ have different needs to everyone else. Surely, accommodation and a legitimate source of income are pretty fundamental to all of us?
Regarding the inclusion of ex-offenders in shaping policy and practice – there was a government review of ‘offender learning’ published earlier in the year. Only 4 out of 96 responses were from ‘offenders’ or ‘ex-offenders’ – kind of proves the point doesn’t it!
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Hi Fergus & Rachel,
“You are on the money here – we have a false dichotomy of ‘them’ and ‘us’. False because ‘we’ could become ‘them’ and prior to being ‘them’ they were ‘us’ and will become so again….got that!”
The dichotomy goes even further in terms of a [ex] offender’s point of view, in particular those that have or had a career in crime.
Society will unfortunately always need the other, even though often the ‘us’ behaviour is criminal, although without conviction. Myself an ex-offender, observing the ‘straight’ members of society, who often commit criminal acts, often wonder why they do not see themselves has criminal, in contrast to all the career [ex] offender’s who always saw or see themselves as criminal!
The double standards & hypocrisy within society are so obvious to the ‘career’ criminal, it is difficult for them to become a part of that hypocrisy. In particular when one goes straight and observes the so called ‘law abiding citizen’s’. I’m obviously making some general observations here, however, I can say with some authority, it has been the most difficult part of desisting from crime – bending over backwards, while the ‘us’ get away with it. I have been called a fool, by many who continue with a life of crime, and truthfully at times, I felt it.
In terms of what you said Fergus – “Only 4 out of 96 responses were from ‘offenders’ or ‘ex-offenders’ – kind of proves the point doesn’t it!”.
Some offenders and [ex] offenders, including myself have become suspicious in terms of organisations wanting the ‘offender’s’ voice – the Business Development Managers, Funding Consultants, and a very hungry third & private sector.
Over the last two years I have watched on Twitter, Linked In and other mediums the growing cry for narratives with the sole aim of supporting the bidding process & integrity of the organisation.
‘Wheel out the offender’ – the consultant cries! – Now make sure we collect the conference fee’s…..
The paradox here is that it is not society who is suspicious of the offender – the offender is suspicious of society – including myself.
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Sorry Andy, I’ve mistaken you for Fergus – it’s not advisable to write at 6am!!
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Yes, trust is a two-way street — and I guess ‘risk’ is too? Your comment raises a whole set of issues about ethics and integrity, and about how market pressures can sometimes undermine both.
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It can be difficult to discuss sometimes – it often relies on ‘perception’ in term of ethics & integrity, in particular from a [ex] offender’s point of view. Too often that voice is mistaken for someone who is not qualified to comment on the administration & funding of services. Service users dare not ask why their narrative is being used, or even know why it is been used!
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