Discovering Desistance

I recently received this email (punishment, it is proposed, be included in every community sentence). (This following on from Fergus’ recent post …).

All the best,

Steve

 

 

The Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has today set out proposals to strengthen community sentences and improve the probation service.

The plans will ensure community sentences are a tough and credible punishment that better tackles reoffending, supported by modernising reforms to probation to cut crime. We aim to make better use of the innovation, capacity and diversity of voluntary private providers, in partnership with the probation service.

The consultations propose:

Community Sentences:

• Intensive Community Punishment sentence – a rigorous new community order for criminals who deserve a serious penalty but can be sensibly dealt with in the community. It will include a package of punishments including unpaid work, significant restrictions on liberty through a curfew with tagging, exclusion from certain areas, a foreign travel ban, driving ban, and a fine.

• At least one form of punishment element in every sentence – for the first time every community sentence will include one form of punishment from the list outlined above;

• Greater and more creative use of electronic monitoring – using technology, such as GPS, to monitor offenders’ compliance with their sentence and to track their movements.

• Seizing criminal assets – a new power for bailiffs to seize criminals’ possessions.

• Alcohol bans – new power to trial a scheme to ban offenders convicted of alcohol-fuelled crime from drinking as part of a community sentence or suspended sentences using new monitoring technology.

Probation:

• The Public Sector Probation Service will retain control of the management of offenders who pose the highest risk, including the most serious and violent criminals to protect the public.  They will continue to provide advice to court, and take public interest decisions over all offenders including initially assessing levels of risk, resolving action where sentences are breached, and decisions on the recalls of offenders to prison.

• Greater effectiveness and quality in probation services – extending competition, including for lower-risk offenders, to ensure that probation services are delivered by those best equipped to tackle crime and reoffending, and encourage the most effective rehabilitation measures, whether they are in the public, voluntary, or private sectors.  Where possible we will pay providers by measured results

• Devolving accountability and responsibility – giving Probation Trusts control of local budgets, including, for example electronic monitoring of curfews, so they can deliver programmes targeted at local needs and reducing reoffending.

The Community Sentencing consultation also includes proposals to improve the use of fines by getting better, more accurate information about offenders’ means, to empower offender managers to deal more swiftly with minor breaches, and to encourage greater use of restorative justice and more effective use of compensation orders, which are paid to victims of crime.

Extending the partnership between the Probation Service and the private, public and voluntary sectors, and giving Probation Trusts more control of local budgets of offender management services like electronic monitoring of curfews and joint commissioning for drug and mental health treatment, will help cut crime by driving down reoffending. This will better support the Government’s priorities for wider reform of the justice sector, including the development of payment by measured results in cutting reoffending.

The proposals set out in the two consultations build on the reforms already being taken forward in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which include extending the maximum length of a curfew from 12 hours a day to 16 hours a day, from six months to 12 months and introducing foreign travel bans. They are a significant extension of the policy launched by the Offender Management Act 2007 and will speed up the use of the legal powers in that Act.

To view the consultation documents, please follow the links below:
• Community Sentences
• Probation

So, David Cameron has plans for ‘toughening up’ community sentences (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/24/community-sentences-tougher-david-cameron).  He’s not the first and he won’t be the last to tread this well-worn path, but does it make any sense?

To be fair, listening to Crispin Blunt on the BBC the other day, I discerned something a bit different about the latest plan. Pressed about the potential costs of satellite tracking of offenders on community sentences, the Minister for Prisons and Probation said he expected the new electronic monitoring contracts to cost less than the old ones, as a result of technological advances. But, more significantly, he said he expected a satellite tracked offender to think twice before committing new crimes, since the new technology would create a record of where she or he was all of the time. Similarly, I suppose the sobriety bracelet is supposed to make someone pause for thought before taking a drink.

Last week, I presented at the IMPACT conference in Bristol — and tried to link the practice of Integrated Offender Management with compliance theory, which seeks to explain why people (sometimes) comply with authority and with the law. Tony Bottoms has suggested there are four main mechanisms in play in compliance — instrumental compliance involves us being incentivised to comply, or deterred from non-compliance; habitual compliance is where we comply unthinkingly from long-established habit or routine; constrained compliance is where we have no real choice, being physically compelled to comply; and normative compliance is where we are somehow morally persuaded to comply — because of attachments and commitments, because of the legitimacy of the authority involved, or because we agree with the norms and values underlying the rule.

The latest ‘toughening up’, it seems to me, is not just about make community penalties hurt more (i.e. giving them more ‘punitive bite’) to satisfy offended public sensibilities, it is also about the lure of imposing external controls on difficult people’s behaviours. A while ago Mike Nellis noted that although electronic monitoring is often sold as a constraint on people’s behaviour (as in ‘the virtual prison’), the reality is that it doesn’t physically constrain at all. The fact that someone is wearing a tag does not, in and of itself (at least not yet…) incapacitate. Rather, if it works to produce compliance, it does so through instrumental mechanisms; i.e. by making getting caught (for example, breaking a curfew) more likely, it makes people calculate that compliance makes sense. In Blunt’s argument, satellite tracking is supposed to takes this inhibiting effect further —  electronic monitoring is supposed to alter the decisional balance not just in relation to compliance with the order, but compliance with the law more generally. It’s not just, so the argument goes, that people won’t break curfews or exclusion zones, they won’t commit crimes due to greater fear of detection.

But is there any evidence that this is actually how compliance can best be generated? It is true that there is evidence that increasing the likelihood of detection is a better strategy in general for deterring crime that increasing the severity of punishment. But that’s a finding from research on crime rates in the whole population, not so much on the specific population of ‘persistent offenders’ that find themselves the focus of IOM schemes, or of community sentences more generally. The research on the effectiveness of EM tends to suggest (unsurprisingly) that it works best with people who are rational calculators — not those whose offending is linked to chronic underlying problems or complex criminogenic needs.

For this group, the available evidence is interesting, and perhaps a little surprising. There is some evidence that EM can be a constructive measure, but only in certain circumstances. For example, in a Scottish pilot of Intensive Support and Monitoring Services for young people involved in persistent offending (see: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/08/05131241/1), it was the combination of support and monitoring that best accounted for positive outcomes, not the restrictions of the tag itself. Trying to impose external controls without addressing the underlying social and personal problems is always going to be a flawed strategy.

So how can community sentences best generate and support compliance? Tony Bottoms’ framework of the four compliance mechanisms allows for interaction effects between them, and developments in what underlies compliance over time. Let me give you a concrete example. In a recent study of compliance with community sentences, Pamela Ugwudike found some evidence that probationers did not comply initially because of the threat of enforcement (disincentive based instrumental compliance) so much as because of the hope of help (incentive based instrumental compliance). More tellingly, if help was forthcoming, attachments ( to supervisors) formed. When attachments formed, probationers were more likely to be influenced by their supervisors in terms of their attitudes and values; they were more likely to comply for normative reasons.

Why does all of this matter? Firstly, because we all want people to comply with sentences and with the law. But secondly, because we’re all better of if people come to comply willingly, having been persuaded to do so by the example that others (like their supervisors) set them. If compliance is merely constrained or instrumental, it’s only as reliable as the maintenance of the constraint, or the maintenance of belief in the threat (or the bribe). And this is where, finally, we get back to the question of desistance. Secondary desistance (not just behaviour change but a shift identity linked to the shedding of a criminal past) is the most secure basis for long term compliance with the law. Ultimately, long term change is the most secure basis for public protection, but politicians tend to miss that point — and to search for technical fixes to compliance problems.

And here’s the rub… if the way that we impose and manage sanctions relies too much on threats and bribes, or on the adequacy of technological fixes, if it diminishes rather than building the legitimacy of authority, if it undermines moral communication, then the best that it will produce is grudging instrumental compliance. Rather than bringing out the best in people, that strategy condemns us to being left to manage their baser instincts, by making sure that the threats and the bribes stack up in favour of compliance. But ultimately, that’s not just a criminal justice problem — it’s a social justice problem. When compliance stops stacking up, when it stops making sense, then we’re all in trouble, as we found out last summer.

 

The Long-Term Impacts of Probation Supervision: Is Impact Detectable After 15 Years?

Presentation available here by Stephen Farrall, Gilly Sharpe, Ben Hunter and Adam Calverly looking at the long term impacts of probation supervision. I particularly found the final section about what encourages/ discourages impact – very interesting.

Dear all,

A recently published report (The Quality of Probation Supervision – A Review of the Literature; co-authored with colleagues at Sheffield and Glasgow Universities) may be of interest to some amongst you.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/law/research/clusters/ccr/occasionalpapers

You can buy hard copies from the CCR (or download it for free from this site). Thanks to Sue Rex at the MoJ for comments on earlier drafts.

Steve

 

Following on from an earlier post about his research findings  concerning black men’s desistance, here is another challenging and personal guest post from Martin Glynn, a doctoral researcher at Birmingham City University, this time on methodological issues:

Racialisation and blackness

Sword (1999) argues that researchers often do not acknowledge how their own background, gender, social class, ethnicity, values, and beliefs affect the emergent construction of reality. This post therefore addresses the issue of my own positionality as a black male researcher, researching black men’s desistance.  The use of terms to describe racialised identities is an extremely contentious issue. Historically, issues related to the language that describes those racialised identities creates confusion, as language is not static but changes over time, within and between groups (Serrant-Green 2002). It is therefore important that any terms used to identify individuals in this post are defined at the outset and placed in context.

The term ‘black’ therefore is used in this thesis as a political term to identify peoples of African descent and origin. It is a term used by many of the research participants to define themselves as a way of representing a ‘unity of experience’ in relation to racism, white privilege, discrimination, and prejudice among people whose skin is not white. It is also important to locate my experiences within a perspective that addresses the ‘racialisation’ of criminology, something that is conspicuously absent when looking at desistance research as a whole. As Garner (2009) argues the concept of racialisation is based on the idea that the object of study should not be ‘race’ itself, but the process by which it becomes meaningful in a particular context.  He further argues that racialisation is one of the key ways that academics can make sense of the ‘meanings of race’. Racialisation  therefore draws attention to the process of making ‘race’ relevant to a particular situation or context, and thus requires an examination of the precise circumstances in which this occurs: who the ‘agents’ are; who the actors are.

Researching black men’s desistance

For me researching black men’s desistance is about giving voice to black men, who need to ‘tell’ and ‘own’ their own stories. For many of the black men I interviewed, negative experiences of incarceration had damaged their confidence in research, where they felt their previous experiences of research processes had been distorted in the name of ‘colour blind’ criminal justice research. Researching those who live in the same community as me, as well as sharing a common cultural heritage creates its own pressures, as working on your objectivity is testing at the best of times. Being grilled about my cultural awareness, black politics, and connection to the ‘streets’ is all part of my initiation into the world of black men in both prison and the community.

And at times the meetings, interviews, and encounters, made me feel that I was being interrogated. I always made my position clear and gave a roll call of my work in prisons, a standard ‘rite of passage’ designed to make me credible in the eyes of black men.  The key to gaining access to their lives was through my own real lived experiences, which like theirs has also been fraught with danger and fear, although in my case not because of a criminal lifestyle. As a black researcher operating within a racialised context I was constantly questioning my own reality as a black man in academia. The dominant research paradigms can at times marginalise a black researcher, when having to defend your ‘blackness’ in relation to researcher the community you come from. Blackness’ which is shorthand for ‘black consciousness’ centres on the understanding of the history of black oppression and subordination.

Colour blindness

‘Colour blindness’ that renders the black contribution to criminology invisible means that the expression of my ‘blackness’ is seen at times as lacking in objectivity, especially when researching the black community. In my own defence I call upon Paulo Friere (1998) who states, ‘I am not impartial or objective. This does not prevent me from holding always a rigorously ethical position’ (1998, p 22), and Becker (1967) who further states, ‘the sociologist who favours officialdom will be spared the accusation of bias’ (1967, p 243). So how does a black researcher’s expression of their ‘blackness’ gain or reduce the possibility of academic validation, when constantly having to confront ‘whiteness’ in both the research environment and the academy?

Black men’s desistance is informed by a range of socio-historical experiences; slavery, colonisation, race riots, etc, that will inform some of the worldview that black men possess. It is therefore the duty of any researcher investigating black men to be sensitive to those issues. I therefore raise a question, what is the relevance of social, historical, and cultural factors that criminal activity in relation to the researcher’s positionality. Russell (2009) and Unnever and Gabbidon (2011) advocate and call for the development of a ‘black criminology’, as a way of privileging the ignored voice of black criminologists looking into issues of ‘race and crime’.  Much the same as ‘feminist researchers’, black researchers want to have the freedom to operate within a context that validates notions of blackness, free from constantly having to defend themselves because of fears of the backlash coming from white academics. The privileging of desistance stories from black men is not to promote the idea of a single definition of what it is to be black, male, and a desister or non desister.

It is about engaging with a set of differences that are shaped by a range of situations, context, and experiences, ‘racialisation’ being one such issue. When interviewing black men there is always a recurring event that has become part of the ritualisation with the research process. Namely, black men thank me for taking time out to listen to their views in an open and non judgemental way. They frequently expressed the view that they felt comfortable with the lack of bias in the pre-discussion and debriefing sessions. This suggests that safety for black men in the interview process is not just a case of signing a release form or having time out of their cell, but there are other considerations taking place. The theoretical context for my racialised positionality as a researcher is my own ‘counter story’ that at times has to speak in opposition to my own sense of subordination within academia itself.

Conclusion

 

This constant toing and froing of black and white people, (men in particular),  using flawed ‘identity politics’ masquerading as ‘pseudo race relations’, has attempted and failed to disable my own sense of identity as a person whose parents embodied two world views (Welsh and Jamaican). There is an on-going challenge of contesting ‘white privilege’ in academia.  A case in point is when my mannerisms, demeanour, and aesthetic reflect the dominant culture at the university; there is a sense of ‘ease’ and ‘acceptance’. However, the moment I present a persona, that is ‘pro-black’, ‘urban’, and ‘intelligent’, words like ‘radical’ and ‘militant’ cascade out of others’ mouths, like a gushing waterfall in the Scottish highlands. An interesting conversation with someone from Zimbabwe recently was a real blessing, when helping understand where I’m now at. He said that I was someone who prefers to light a candle in a darkened room, rather than shout at the same darkened room for not being dark enough. Seldom have I experienced a questioning about white male researchers researching white men, but the continual battle I undergo where justifying my desire to research those who look like me, takes up energy I could better spend on my work.

 

                                                           

 

After the recent flurry of activity getting the workshops set up, and developing some plans to show the film in various places, it feels like time to get blogging again. Fortunately, I have saved up a few contributions that I gathered a while ago; this is the first of these.

I teach an MSc option on Rehabilitation and Desistance from Crime and over the course of the last few years have used several films as case studies. I started out with Ken Loach’s 2007 film Sweet Sixteen (starring Martin Compston) (www.imdb.com/title/tt0313670) (and there is a study guide built around this film at the end of my 2007 Reducing Reoffending book), moved on after a couple of years to Laurie Collyer’s 2006 film Sherrybaby (starring Maggie Gylenhaal) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423169/), and this year switched to Nicole Kassell’s 2006 film The Woodsman (starring Kevin Bacon)(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361127/ ) They are all great films, and all do a great job of letting us into the inner worlds and social lives of their main characters. I’m always looking out for other desistance movies that might work as case studies, so if anyone can think of any, just let me know.

Getting back to the point, I challenged this year’s students (who at this stage hadn’t read or talked about desistance, but had been studing rehabilitation for several weeks) to write a review for posting here. Two of them rose to the challenge and so I have copied their reviews below. [They do give away the plot, so don’t read them if you want to watch the film!]. As always, we’d be keen to hear your responses.      

From Jennifer Harkins:

“Child sex offenders do not make sympathetic protagonists, but they do raise complex questions about society. After a 12 year sentence how does a convicted sex offender return to normal life? That is the question posed in “The Woodsman”, directed by Nicole Kassell, based on the play by Steven Fechter in response to Megan’s Law. With a taboo subject like child sex offending, it would’ve been easy to go overboard and make “The Woodsman” an overtly confrontational film; however director and screenwriter have managed to craft a subtle movie about second chances, the rehabilitation potential of the American penal system and whether and how sex offenders should ever be allowed back into society.

The title is based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and explains the way in which society tends to stack cards against ex-offenders regardless of their intention to reform or not. Coming from prison, most offenders have the same problems when back in society; they find it difficult to find housing and employment; they may feel targeted by police; and relationships become more strained. Kevin Bacon as Walter, perfectly captures the confusion, guilt and fear of his circumstances. Whilst managing to play certain challenging and discomfiting scenes with extreme subtlety, I can honestly say I didn’t hate him. The directors don’t judge their character, as he has paid his debt by his prison sentence, but they don’t find excuses for him either. Instead, the movie focuses on the borderline between doing right and temptation while confronting society about the right to be reintegrated.

The film raises several issues such as; when is someone really “cured” and is it safe to release someone if you’re not sure? Looking at Walter’s behaviour, it seems clear he is still a threat to society. Yet, Megan’s Law is shown to be an obstacle to a successful reintegration into society, exemplified by the negative reaction from his co-workers. It’s clear from this movie that social norms and familial environments play crucial roles in a successful rehabilitation.

However, in true Hollywood style, there were perhaps too many unbelievable coincidences: his flat overlooks a school; he spots another child sex offender luring young boys into his car with sweets; his girlfriend was also abused by older brothers; and the girl he meets admits having been molested by her father. These events and circumstances culminate in a clear turning point at the scene on the park bench where he has the opportunity to offend, but decides not to.

Though Walter insists that he never physically hurt a child, I don’t think he has grasped the emotional damage that he inflicts. It is the tears of the little girl on that park bench, when she confesses to her father molesting her, which help Walter develop an understanding of the pain of those whom he has molested, as well as the realisation that his behaviour has been ruining his own life.

Walter’s character is perhaps a metaphorical one, in that it not only shows that this realisation might be a chance for his recovery but also one for our hypocritical society. However, not all ex-offenders are able to overcome so many challenges, for whatever reasons. As the police officer who takes upon himself to keep a close eye on Walter — an extremely “Javert”- like character — informs him; recidivism statistics demonstrate that the odds are against the rehabilitation of former prisoners.”

From Gerard McGuire:

“Released from a 12 year prison sentence for child molesting, Walter (the movie’s main character) faces a multitude of challenges in attempting to reintegrate into society and becoming fully rehabilitated. Fortunate enough to find steady work (a challenge for any released ex-offender) in a lumberyard and entering into loving relationship with Vicki despite her (eventual) knowledge of his past, others are not so forgiving upon this discovery. Fellow workers (briefly) assault him, his sister shuns him, his movement is tracked by a suspicious detective and even his supportive brother-in-law thinks he is ‘diseased’ by dint of his past behaviour.

This flags up a major challenge for offender rehabilitation and societal reintegration – public perceptions. In a ‘risk society’ characterised by pervasive ontological insecurities and fear of the deviant ‘other’, the issue (ironically) seems clear – distrust and stigmatisation and outcasting are liable to follow, if remaining unchecked. If so, this would undermine the rehabilitative project in regards of societal reintegration.

Notwithstanding, Walter does ultimately overcome his inner demons – albeit the manner of this is rather unpalatable. His old ways resurface as he frequently spots another man (‘Candy’) grooming children outside the elementary school facing his apartment, and upon re-identifying with this behaviour, Walter follows a young girl (‘Robin’) into a park. After getting acquainted, they later meet there again and Walter seems ready to molest again  – but the innocuous Robin’s tearfulness and her revelation of abuse by her father forces Walter to recognsie the emotional harm that absue causes – he then asks her to leave. He recognises the error of his ways. Indeed, his struggle to assimilate this newfound awareness of the harms he has caused (and indeed anger at his old ways) leads him to violently assault Candy, when confronted with him releasing a young boy from the back of his car. He now repudiates his own past, perhaps laying a solid foundation for future desistance from such crimes.

Yet this is only the beginning of the challenge facing Walter – the stickiness of labels (particularly with sex offenders) and the related societal reaction, will probably ensure that he is hardly riding off into the sunset at the movie’s end.”

 

 

Some amongst us, of course, may have known of this for a while (if so, I’m not amongst the ‘in crowd’), but this sort of thing was bound to happen at some stage:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/01/prison-governor-locks-out-probation-staff

It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out, but as The Guardian’s article says, the “decision means that all probation work inside the three prisons has been suspended, jeopardising rehabilitation work with the 2,000 inmates including the preparation of parole dossiers.”

Either way, not good news for those currently in the prisons affected and preparing for release or wanting to work with probation staff.

Steve

 

Hi All,

Okay – we’re now fully underway in getting things ready for the Sheffield seminars.

1: To register an interest please either either myself (s.farrall@sheffield.ac.uk) or Lisa Burns (l.k.burns@sheffield.ac.uk) requesting a place. Places are limited so please do act swiftly – this ISN’T a first come first served do (since we want to maximise attendance by practitioners and current or past service users, and charities etc), but we are expecting places to go quickly.

2: When you register please do state if you’re a policy maker, service user, practitioner etc.

3: The dates are the 10th May and the 14th June – and we’d like people to attend BOTH of these dates. We’ll watch the film at the first seminar and start to discuss it then, and then regroup on the 14th June for further discussions. We’re expecting to start about 10am and to end somewhere between 3 and 4pm on each day. Coffees and lunches will be provided.

4: The seminars will be held at the School of Law at Sheffield University
(similar seminars are being held at in Belfast and Glasgow). We’ll mail out maps etc nearer the time.

5: Those who are not working or have no institutional funds to draw upon
will have their travel paid for them.

6: If you can’t make both Sheffield seminars, it MAY be possible for you to attend the equivalent seminar in either Glasgow or Belfast – you’ll need to check the dates and availability with Shadd and Fergus.

7: Please do tell opther people about the seminars – current or former service users families are particularly of interest to us.

8: Any other Qs, drop me an email.

 

Best wishes,

Steve

 

 

We’re now gearing up for the workshops for the project, which are to be held in Glasgow, Belfast and Sheffield.  The workshops will involve between 30- 40 people, a mixture of criminal justice service users (past and present), criminal justice practitioners, policy makers and academics.  The workshops will be a 2-staged venture, with the second workshops occurring about a month after the first, and attendees needing to commit to attend both sessions. We are trying to ensure each workshop has a good mixture of attendees with different experiences of the desistance process. We cannot guarantee everyone a place but if you are interested in attending the workshops then please let us know.

The dates for the workshops are:

Glasgow: 10 April & 16 May

Sheffield: 10 May & 14 June

Belfast: 18 April & second stage workshop tbc

 

The workshops will provide an opportunity to watch and discuss the film being produced as part of this project.  Then the workshops will focus on what is working well to support desistance from crime and explore how this success can be strengthened and emulated. To do this, we are proposing that the first stage workshops will involve a:

Discovery phase – We will begin by exploring and appreciating ‘the best of what is’, identifying the factors and forces that have supported the desistance process.

Dream Phase – This phase focuses on imagining a ‘possible future’.  The aim is to develop ‘provocative propositions’ that realistically sum up ‘what could be’, if services, practices, policies were redesigned to better support desistance

The second stage workshops will then focus on the:

Design Phase -Here, the focus is designing a more ideal approach to supporting desistance. It requires us to think about what practices and services might look like if they were designed in such a way as to better support desistance and achieve the ‘provocative propositions’ developed in the dream phase.

Destiny Phase – This session is centrally about ‘making change happen’. Here we will focus on what needs to be done to achieve the vision of the future established in the dream and design phases.  This session will focus on identifying what participants can do to move towards an ideal service, and identifying what others also need to do to make this happen.

We welcome any comments or feedback about our proposed approach, and please let us know if you would be interested in attending the 2 workshops in either Glasgow, Belfast or Sheffield.

Looking forward to how this develops next…

Claire

hi,

We’re in a position to annouce the dates for the two seminars in Sheffield (people are expected to attend both – a further blog will provide further info). The Sheffield dates are:

Thursday 10th May and

Thursday 14th June.

We’ll blog again soon about why there are two seminars in each venue and why we’d like people to come to both. Dates for Belfast and Glasgow are on their way too! So what this space!

See my earlier blog for what you need to tell us in terms of applying for a space at the seminars.

All the best,

 

Steve