Discovering Desistance

This post is from Christian Perrin, a PhD Researcher at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Christian undertook the research outlined below in 2012 as part of a Psychology MSc at Nottingham Trent.

A growing body of research argues that in order to enhance offenders’ chances of successfully re-joining society and desisting from offending, prison should be less punitive and more focussed on rehabilitation. Indeed, substantial evidence suggests that punitive prison environments may actually increase recidivism (see Gendreau, 2012; Raphael, 2009). Such studies emphasise the need for ‘purposeful activity’ in prisons, and schemes that enable offenders to positively contribute towards their own rehabilitation (Herbert & Garnier, 2008). A recent report from the Ministry of Justice has emphasised the importance of ‘meaningful prison work’ and ‘active citizenship’ (Secretary of State for Justice, 2010). Recently a growing body of research has begun to explore what might constitute ‘meaningful work’ in prisons. Such research generally encourages constructive prison settings where offenders can form strong social bonds and meaningful relationships (Edgar, Jacobson & Biggar, 2011; Stevens, 2012). Peer-support schemes appear to represent a source for such positivity (Dhaliwal &Harrower, 2009; Perrin & Blagden, 2013).

Researching the Impact of Peer-Support in Prisons

The research project summarised here investigated one peer-support scheme, the Samaritans Prison Listener scheme, which operates in prisons across the UK. The research was inspired by my personal experience of volunteering with Samaritans. I experienced such deep realisations and attitude changes through listening to people’s innermost thoughts and feelings. This prompted my curiosity about how such experiences might impact on prisoners.

Offending is often associated with decreased empathy, communication skills deficits, and difficulties both in establishing strong social ties, and  in regulating emotions (Lohrlr, Farrington and Justice, 1998; Ward and Gannon, 2007). As such, it is plausible that participating in a scheme centred on principles of empathy and emotional wellbeing could have a magnified effect on offending populations. This assumption informed the main aim of the project: to explore the impact of ‘being’ a prison listener.

In 1991, the Prison Service, in collaboration with Samaritans, established the Listener scheme to help tackle suicide. Via the scheme, prisoners suffering distress, despair and suicidal feelings are able to call on Listeners and talk face-to-face about their feelings anonymously and without judgement. Prisoners wishing to become volunteer Listeners go through several weeks of training. Once fully trained, the Listeners may be called out several times a day to provide emotional support to those in need. As well as listening, members of the scheme also meet weekly to discuss issues relating to ‘caller care’ and the general running of the scheme (Foster and Magee, 2011).

The Listener scheme is currently the foremost peer support scheme in operation in UK prisons (Samaritans, 2012). However, research is limited; a significant gap in knowledge exists relating to how Listeners conceive their roles. Only one study has explicitly addressed what listening actually means to prisoners (Dhaliwal & Harrower, 2009). In that study, participants demonstrated elevated self-confidence, personal growth, greater empathy, and respect for prison staff as a result of Listener roles. Although being a Listener appears to elicit positive change within prisoners, there is a paucity of research specifically exploring what it is about listening that prompts change and what this change means to Listeners. The aim of the present research was to bridge this gap.

To this end, six male prisoners were interviewed. Transcripts were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Analysis revealed two super-ordinate themes (‘personal transformation’ and ‘countering negative prison emotions’) and several subordinate themes. Whilst it is only possible to provide a sample of the analysis here, the report can be viewed in full via: http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/research/Samaritans%20Project%20Report%202012%20FINAL.pdf

 Findings

Super-ordinate Themes	Subordinate Themes
Personal Transformation      Countering Negative Prison Emotions	New MeDeveloping a Positive Self-image Desire to Give Something Back   Gaining Perspective Distraction / Channelling Energy Development of Meaning and Purpose

‘New Me’  

All participants appeared to experience their listening role as a method of evidencing and understanding change. Theorists propose that desistance requires personal maturity, new social bonds and a personal subjective narrative shifts which offenders build around these changes (Farrall et al, 2011). Research surrounding offenders’ experiences of desistance highlights how they tend to create and internalise a self-narrative which helps them understand the changes they experience and why offending no longer ‘fits’ into their life story (Vaughan, 2007). This self-narrative assists the development of a ‘new me’ but, crucially, needs to be combined with a key ‘turning point’ (Sampson & Laub, 2005). Listening appeared to constitute a turning point for participants:

If you’re out through life causing destruction and distress to people and yourself, you can quite quickly fill your bank up with negative ways of thinking and negative thoughts… It’s like having a big tub of dirty water, that’s negative. And then someone gives you a positive drip, and eventually, with more drips, the water gets less murky, overflows, and then it’s just nice and clean. That’s what happens basically. It’s learning to accept that positive (‘Steve’).

My whole concept now is to help rather than hinder, and that’s because of the scheme, and I’m not just saying that. That is genuine… I didn’t give a shit before I was a listener. I would argue with staff. I was a right so and so… Even my probation, he’d go “oh I feel so agitated when I talk to you”. And then in one of his reports, when I had joined the listeners, he said “Cliff is now approachable, he’s mellowed out, and we can talk”. I think it was because I’d learned respect (‘Cliff’).

Desire to Give Back  

Along with the establishment of ‘new selves’ and positive self-images, participants also demonstrated a desire to ‘give something back’. In exploring crime desistance, Maruna (2001) posits that offenders who are ‘going straight’ construct a ‘redemption script’. This  is typified by a desire to ‘give something back’ and an acceptance that although they cannot change the past, they can contribute positively in the future. These propositions have been linked with successful reintegration (Marsh, 2011). During every interview, participants gave descriptions of how they thought they had given something back. These thoughts provided them with deep satisfaction:

You could see someone was upset or whatever, and after you speak to them they’ve perked up a bit… they start relaxing a bit and they say “yeah, I’m ready to go back out to the prison”… and when you see it happen it makes you feel good because you’ve done something good and given something back. I’m not saying it makes up for the crime you’ve committed, but you are giving something back and you’re turning something into a positive. Even if it’s just for that hour or that day, you know you’ve tried (‘Andy’) 

Development of Meaning and Purpose

Every participant expressed that their Listener role provided meaning and purpose in prison. In 2010, the Prison Reform Trust asserted that ‘prisons should not allow offenders to simply mark their time in a purposeless fashion. Rather, prisons should be seen as places where prisoners are engaged in challenging and meaningful work’ (Edgar, Jacobson & Biggar, 2011). The Listener role certainly appears to help prisoners establish meaning and build purposeful lives in prison. Self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) is useful in explaining why having meaning is so crucial for prisoners. The theory holds that humans naturally seek autonomy, connectedness and have an intrinsic desire to effect the environment around them, not just exist within it. When these needs are not met, individuals construct illegitimate substitute strategies. However, when these needs are met, individuals become motivated to reflect and realise change (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Through Listener roles, participants were able to generate meaning and purpose. The following extracts highlight how participants moulded themselves important roles and gained a feeling of being needed.

It’s meant the world to me and I’m not gonna lie. And I think that’s come across, and it has meant the world to me cos it’s helped me a great deal. But I’d hope that I’ve helped other people, so it’s worked dual. (Ben)

These people have spilled their heart out to you. And you’ve got that, in a little box, just there, never to be revealed. So he’s put his life (pause)… He’s took everything and he’s put it in this basket here (hand gestures a box and passes the box to the researcher). “Please look after it” (whispers). That’s what it’s like. Like, don’t let no one see it. You’ve gotta protect that. (Kyle)

Conclusions and Implications

Broadly, this research furthers existing understandings of how change can occur through peer support schemes. More specifically, this research has helped bridge the gap in knowledge surrounding the Listener scheme and the effects on the Listeners themselves. Through listening, prisoners benefit from purposeful activity during their time in prison, a chance to acquire new skills, earning respect from others, building positive self-concepts, and an opportunity to give something back. Each of these benefits has the potential to encourage desistance, be it via the ‘knifing off’ of unwanted pasts (Sampson and Laub, 2005), the reversal of negative thinking cycles (Maruna, 2004), the satisfaction of desires through prosocial means (Ward, 2002), or via other psychological mechanisms. Although the Listener role cannot claim responsibility for reduced offending, becoming a Listener in prison appears to encourage desistance by surfacing the ‘good’ in individuals and allowing them to positively ‘re-story’ their lives. These implications may hold true for other peer-support schemes, and the concept of prison peer-support in general.

Fundamentally, adopting a Listener role in prison seems to help equip prisoners with the tools required for a productive prison life and a potentially successful societal re-entry. It seems necessary to present the Listener scheme (and other peer-led programmes) as a resource HM Prison Service should  encourage. Furthermore, there may be significant value in understanding the benefits of listening in terms of therapeutic applications. Although this research does not claim that Listener (and other peer-support) schemes produce and sustain desistance, they certainly represent one avenue to catalyse change.  

Questions and comments are welcome (christian.perrin2011@my.ntu.ac.uk). A full version of Christian’s project report is available electronically at:

http://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/research/Samaritans%20Project%20Report%202012%20FINAL.pdf

 

This post is from Steve Graham, a Reintegration & Transition Consultant, Tasmania Prison Service, in Australia. Steve undertook the research summarised here in 2012 as part of his Masters of Criminology with the University of Tasmania, while concurrently working in the prison.

There has been a tendency in Australian corrections (and elsewhere) for community service to take the form of an involuntary and time-limited court ordered punishment, where there is little emphasis on the potential for ‘earned redemption’ (Bazemore, 1998) or other possible benefits of reparation for the offender. This type of ‘low level’ community service usually involves menial and laborious tasks, with little or no matching with an offender’s skills and interests. Mandated menial activities can be ineffective in promoting desistance as they do not necessarily build the motivation, social capital, human capital, citizenship rights and opportunities that are needed. In certain circumstances, they instead risk humiliating offenders and building contempt and alienation.

Researching the Impact of Community Service Activities with Prisoners

The research investigates the use and impact of community service activities with minimum security rated prisoners in Tasmania, Australia. The inspiration for this research started when I was speaking with a minimum security enclosed prisoner about the potato crop in the prison community garden. I spoke with him about the benefits of generative ‘paying back’ in the process of reintegration and desistance from crime, which he certainly understood but he wasn’t as familiar with those terms. I explained that the local community (a disadvantaged area next to the prison) were the recipients of the vegetables he was growing, particularly seniors, sole parents and the unemployed. The next day, I visited him again and we were standing in rows of freshly planted seed potatoes. He mentioned he had spoken to his adult children about what he was doing as part of giving back to the community. The emotional response from his children were that they were “really, really proud” of what he was doing, despite his serious crime, and in telling me it was obvious from the tears in his eyes that he was very proud as well. Since then, he seems to be a changed man, freely speaking with journalists and researchers who visit the initiative about giving back and desistance. I wanted to understand more about this change, and how we might better use different activities to effectively support desistance in prison. In this study, the primary research question is: can community service activities assist the desistance and community reintegration of prisoners?

The community service activities that Tasmanian prisoners may participate in are different from the typical community service orders that probationers may be sentenced to. Eligible prisoners can volunteer to participate in community service activities that are meaningful, flexible and which try to capitalise on existing skills and help build new ones. A range of 14 community service activities being offered in partnership with non-government organisations were included in this research. These include: a multi-site community garden where prisoners grow fruit and vegetables for distribution to neighbourhood centres and people in disadvantaged communities; coastcare and environmental restoration; building crafted stone bridges and walls; gardening and maintenance at the Royal Botanical Gardens and Government House; animal foster care and training assistance dogs for people with disabilities; re-furbishing computers for community use; ‘Artists with Conviction’ prisoner art exhibitions; setting up large tourism and community festival events; volunteering as cricket and football umpires at community matches; and prisoners conducting prison tours to educate visiting college students. Minimum security rated prisoner participants may be in the reintegration phase of their sentence (actively preparing for release within 3-6 months), or may have many years yet to serve.

Qualitative research methods were used to collect the data, including literature review, semi-structured practitioner interviews, a stakeholder focus group, field notes and participant observation. The themes and findings of this study broadly resonate with those of others in the field, in particular Maruna (2001), Bazemore & Erbe (2004), McIvor (2010) and Halsey and Harris (2011).

Giving More Than Required: Generativity, Generosity and Reciprocity

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of themes in the study highlight the importance and benefits of allowing prisoners to take on meaningful, dignified and socially valued roles. Two elements stand out as motivating factors for prisoner generativity and generosity: the moderate levels of engagement, ownership and agency that prisoners are allowed to display in these activities, and the reciprocity and respect they receive from community members and practitioners in return. In discussions of generativity and ‘giving back’, some research participants spoke extensively about how prisoners in these initiatives are known to ‘go the extra mile’:

“Our crew does more every day; they always try to give that bit extra.”

“They don’t want to be seen in a negative light, and they go beyond the call of duty to do a job so as not to be judged as this ‘bad person’.”

“They get more things done, they can make decisions and get more things achieved outside the [prison] fence than inside the fence.”

A few participants commented that some prisoners see themselves as carrying the corporate or personal honour of the prison, choosing to do extra work and consistently delivering positive results so as not to let the community partner agency down.

In several instances, the bridging capital and social bonds forged in the course of the community service activities have lasted and been of mutual benefit post-release.

“It’s about building those positive relationships. A couple of them got paroled, but still come back. They feel like they are doing something out in the community. They organised getting the 10 tons of firewood out into the community.”

“They are accepted by the neighbourhood centre and our community.”

“If you can make some social connections outside of where your crim connections used to be, that’s got to be a better start than going back to where you were.”

In my discussion and analysis (available in the full version at the link below), I identify reasons for why some types of community service activities are better at assisting desistance than others. The challenges and obstacles in supporting the desistance of prisoners are also outlined. Yet it is interesting that, in this study at least, identity transformation, self-respect and pride from ‘giving back’ and making a difference are evident even in cases where the activities give to beneficiaries who the prisoners may never meet (for example, children who play on playgrounds and adventure equipment they built, or low income recipients of the food from the prison community garden).

Overall, the feedback from the agencies and practitioners in this study is positive. They have invested in building a connection to the prisoners as a group while emphasising the connection to the community that the activity creates. This advocacy by agencies is an example of the community reaching into the prison. Giving more than is required seems to a reciprocal process, yielding promising results for those directly and indirectly involved.

Findings and Implications

Community services activities are not a universal remedy for assisting desistance, and they do not mitigate against institutional issues or individual ‘pains of imprisonment.’ Proponents of desistance argue that prisons should be used sparingly and as a last resort for good reasons (see Weaver & McNeill, 2008; McNeill et al., 2012). However, where people are incarcerated, supporting desistance can and should begin in prison.

This research challenges the notion of allowing prisoners to contribute to broad categories of community service without first measuring the potential value and quality of the relationships gained, the type of capital (social, human, economic, bridging) invested and enabled, the ability for the prisoner to find and explore a new pro-social identity and agency within the activity, as well as the capacity to continue in newfound roles and relationships post-release.

Non-government agencies can bridge the gap between the prison and the community. The community service activities themselves are simply the vehicle for relationships and opportunities which enable new social connections and identity, but in the capacity of giving rather than taking. Prisons have the opportunity to partner and collaborate with these agencies to engage prisoners as citizens in a local context, to connect them with people who know they are prisoners and yet choose to see and relate to them differently. The findings of this study, although preliminary and small in scope, are encouraging, affirming the notion that, for a significant number, giving back offers a way of moving forward.

Any questions and comments welcome. A full version of the study in the form of Steve’s Masters thesis is available electronically at:

http://reintegrate.info/webresources/

With the changes in the probation service starting to loom more heavily, I thought that some poetry may help sustain spirits. This is Invictus which Nelson Mandela is reported to have taken comfort from during his years in prison.

 

 

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

With best wishes for whatever the future holds.

Stephen

 

Do you know someone who could contribute to research on desistance amongst sexual offenders?

ESRC funded PhD research at the University of Sheffield aims to explore what stops men who have previously committed sexual offence/s against children from reoffending

The research involves informal interviews of around 2 hours with individuals who have previously received a prison sentence of 30 months or more for this type of offence, and have been released for at least 2 years

If you know someone who may be able to help, or for more information, please contact

Joanne Hulley :

0752 8391827

lwp11jlh@sheffield.ac.uk

School of Law, University of Sheffield, Bartolome House, Winter Street, Sheffield, S3 7ND

The editors and publishers of The Springer Encyclopedia Criminology and Criminal Justice (edited by G. Bruinsma and D. Weisburd) have given their permission for me to post on the blog a new book chapter (technically and Encyclopedia entry) that the Discovering Desistance team wrote a few months ago, in an attempt to summarise arguments about the implications of desistance research for criminal justice supervision. I have copied the Introdcution below, in an attempt to whet your appetite — you can find the whole chapter via the link at the bottom or on the Useful Resources page.

Desistance theories and research seek to understand and explain how and why people stop offending – and stay stopped. The notion that such studies might provide a framework for offender supervision, and even for criminal justice interventions more widely conceived, has a long history – dating back at least to the work of the Gluecks (Glueck and Glueck, 1937[1966]). If, as they argued, desistance is about maturing out of criminal conduct, what could be done through criminal justice interventions to ‘force the plant’, or to accelerate the maturational process? The question is, of course, a very good one, not least in the context of contemporary preoccupations with the economic, human and social costs of reoffending by ex-prisoners (see for example, Ministry of Justice, 2010) and with the broader challenges of ex-prisoner reentry (see Petersilia, this volume).

And yet, between the 1930s and the end of the 20^th century, hardly any use of desistance research to inform sentencing and correctional policy and practice is discernible. Instead, the story of this era is the familiar one of the rise and fall and rise again of rehabilitative interventions; a historical cycle linked to but not fully explained by debates about their effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Though these two topics – the process of desistance from crime and the effectiveness of rehabilitative interventions – are obviously linked in several ways, the connections between them did not begin to be properly explored until the turn of the century.

Today, debates and discussions about desistance and how to support it through criminal justice interventions seem to be bubbling up all around the world of corrections, not just in jurisdictions with deep cultural and historical connections, like the UK and the USA, but also in places as diverse as Norway and Singapore. 

This chapter does not aim to explain this upsurge of interest in desistance, nor does it engage with the important and interesting question of when desistance research is relevant (and irrelevant) to criminal justice (see McNeill and Weaver, 2010). Suffice it to say that unless criminal justice is concerned on some level with rehabilitation and reducing reoffending, desistance theory and research is unlikely to have much purchase. But to the extent that sentencing and correctional systems, and more specifically to the structure and practice of supervision[1], are concerned with these outcomes, understanding how and why people stop offending (with or without help or hindrance from the justice system) has obvious appeal. 

Rather than seeking to review theories of and evidence about desistance itself, this chapter has the more modest aim of charting the emergence and development of the arguments advanced over the last 12 years about the implications of this body of work for offender supervision. Readers with little or no knowledge of the desistance literature would be well advised therefore to first read this Encyclopedia’s chapter on ‘Desistance as compared to rehabilitation’.

Desistance as a Framework for Supervision

Things have been pretty quiet on the blog for a while… first the summer holidays and then a perfect storm of deadlines have kept me pretty busy. But I’m delighted to report that, in the process of putting together our ‘Impact Report’ for our funders (the Economic and Social Research Council), we finally managed to complete at least a draft form of a document that summarises the ‘Provocative Propositions’ that emerged from the DesKE workshops in 2012.

We’ve been thinking and writing about these ideas a fair bit since 2012, and have conducted many more workshops of different sorts, some of which we (or others) have written about on this blog. But it’s good to go back to the original workshops and read this summary of the ideas that they generated. We’d be delighted to know what you make of them, whether or not you took part…

Most importantly (if you are involved in any way in criminal justice): Have these ideas changed anything? Are we getting any better at supporting desistance?

You can find the propositions here: DesKE Propositions

Yesterday, with a mixture of jealousy and regret, I was following on Twitter some of the plenary addresses and the ‘Trial of Criminology’ at the BSC Conference which is currently taking place in Wolverhampton. Apparently Shadd put a strong case for the defence.  One of the recurring themes concerned the question of criminology’s ‘impact’. That’s hardly surprising since this is the time when academics have to scurry around trying to find evidence of their impact to submit to the Research Excellence Framework (it’s our once-every-seven-years report card). I think I agreed with some of the speakers that impact in the social sciences is often more about helping people think differently about the issues and problems they face; not just in the policy context (which tends to unhelpfully dominate these discussions), but in practice too. Unlike engineers, we don’t often invent new widgets to ‘solve’ social problems (which is probably a good thing!); some of us don’t even aspire to do. Nonetheless, I hope this project has helped reflective practitioners to think differently about how to support the people in their charge, and about how to support desistance. With that in mind, I thought I’d share the brief report below, which captures the kind of criminological research impact I care most about and was sent to me by our colleagues in Merseyside, where we ran some workshops recently to help the staff and service users and local partners of one Local Delivery Unit imagine a new approach.  

Wirral Desistance Project: ‘Seeing Beyond The Risk…

The Wirral is one of five geographical areas within Merseyside which is identified within Merseyside Probation Trust as a local delivery unit (LDU). It has been of some concern over the last few years that proven re offending rates on Wirral appear to be higher than the other LDUs and it has been very difficult to pinpoint exactly why that might be the case.

Rather than do nothing and blame changes in police activity, offending profiles within the geographical area etc, Wirral LDU decided to focus attention on probation practice. Encouraged by the NOMS SEEDs agenda, the senior management team wanted a focus on changing the way in which probation workers interact with service users based on improved engagement and supported by desistance principles. It was for this reason that the LDU took part in the Desistance Knowledge Exchange in the latter part of 2012.

Two workshops were held on Wirral comprising  of a mix of  staff, service users and partner agency representatives. This was the first time that staff and service users had sat around a table together  in a workshop environment to truly explore the journey of the service user and the helpful/unhelpful responses of the probation service. As the probation lead officer, it was a humbling and very exciting experience. The film, ‘The Road From Crime’, acted as a wonderful conduit to understanding and debate between service users and workers. Partner agencies also contributed their observations. Whilst partners remained supportive of probation work, some comments challenged our thinking regarding service delivery particularly in relation to our use of the term ‘offender’. What came out of the workshops was a renewed commitment to work differently within desistance principles and to involve the service user more effectively in the journey Wirral LDU was about to make.

In order to ensure a sound knowledge base across the LDU, a further two theory lectures were delivered by Rachael Steele, Senior Research and Performance Information Manager, to all staff explaining desistance as a process and highlighting key desistance principles which should underpin and define a different way of working with service users.

Following the workshops, Siobhan Doran, project support consultant,  galvanised staff into action by convening a desistance planning team comprising of Wirral staff and service users. This is where the ideas and creativity were generated and the energy to progress the project was fuelled. The first step was to  change the language we used and the noun ‘offender’ was changed to ‘service user’. This was remarkably easy and was a first sign that we could make changes to common practice and still retain our focus on service user rehabilitation and public protection. At the same time, an early lesson was the realisation  that too much emphasis on the offending behaviour and current risk issues masked important clues to why a person does not and cannot desist. As a result, we adopted a quote from one probation officer as our mission statement, Wirral Doing Things Differently: ‘Seeing beyond the risk…’

The structure for the project was designed in collaboration with project support and the research department who agreed to evaluate the project under a variety of data collection measures. A cohort of cases has been identified comprising of four cases per offender manager. This cohort will be asked to complete a pre and post desistance questionnaire over a nine month period. In addition, data will be collected which compares levels of unacceptable absences, compliance figures, reduction in tiering, staff /service user satisfaction, over a similar period.

It was agreed that for the project to be successful, it had to involve everyone in Wirral Probation Centre including administrative staff. For this to be achieved, staff members have bid for particular projects. Each project is linked to one or more desistance principles. For example, the creation of a women’s netball team can be linked to improvements in social capital, health and well being. The welfare reform workshops are based in a realism that acknowledges a service user’s obstacles to change. The film club hopes to develop moral aptitude via discussion and debate. The re design of the reception area encourages better engagement and a ‘hopeful’ environment.

One  to one work with service users is based on the premise that everyone should try a different approach based on desistance principles. As such, practice workshops have taken place, jointly facilitated by Wirral team managers and our practitioner practice development officer. The aim was  to encourage and liberate workers from old styles of offence focused work. By the end of the workshops, each participant would have formulated three actions to try with their desistance cohort and which will be different to conventional ways of working. This might include leaving the office and carrying out supervision on the move, known on Wirral as ‘walks and talks’. It might include visiting places which are important to the service user and exploring times when they were not offending. Follow on workshops will include exploring how to demonstrate desistance principles in risk assessments and risk management. We will also be looking at induction procedures, pre group work for accredited programmes and exit interviews.

In the face of considerable uncertainty surrounding Probation’s future, it would be reasonable to expect workers to approach any new initiatives with a degree of cynicism as  future threats to job security appear on the horizon. On Wirral this has not been the case and workers appear invigorated and enthused by the project. I have encouraged staff and service users to write narratives about their experiences and these are beginning to trickle in. One worker decided on a sunny day to go for a walk with his service user. Interestingly, the first 10 minutes of the conversation were taken up with a bombardment of questions : ‘Where are you taking me? Are we going to the police station? Are you taking me to the court to make me pay my fine?’.

The message was not lost on the probation worker and it demonstrated just how much trust we had lost in our relationships with service users by an over emphasis on enforcement, targets and risk. Seeing beyond the risk is something we would hope all probation workers can do. Not so. Early signs suggest a relearning which is rich and meaningful and which all workers should take with them in or out of the public sector. Service users may even benefit and we look forward to hearing their stories over the coming months.

Rosie Goodwin (Assistant Chief Officer: Wirral LDU)(emphases added)

Things have been a bit quiet on this blog recently (I guess we’ve been busy on other fronts), so to keep you interested, I have uploaded an audio recording and my PowerPoint from a recent meeting of the London Practitioner Forum, organised by Wendy Fitzgibbon at London Metropolitan University. 

I was a late substitute for Shadd at the event which took place on May Day this year. Given the timing, I took the opportunity to critically examine the limitations of the UK Government’s understanding of and plans for ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’. Followers of the blog might already be familiar with the taxonomy of four (or sometimes five) forms of rehabilitation; this talk suggests that the ConDem coalition seems to understand or recognise only one of these, and that one imperfectly. The result is an imbalanced, inadequate and morally inconsistent package of reforms.

The audio recording (supplied by our colleagues at London Met) also includes excellent contributions from Adrian Smith of London Probation Trust and Jason Warr (a doctoral researcher at Cambridge).      

You can access the audio and PPT here:

Rehabilitation, revolution and roadblocks (PowerPoint)

Rehabilitation, revolution and roadblocks (Audio)

 

This guest post comes from Kyesha James who is currently a senior at SUNY New Paltz. She majored in Sociology with a concentration in Criminology. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and is passionate about criminal justice reform and advocacy.

While watching the documentary, The Road From Crime, it dawned on me that there is a heavy stigma against reformed individuals trying to re-enter back into society. The documentary made me realize how much of a struggle it is for ex-offenders to come into society without any barriers. These groups of people are denied access to a lot of opportunities because of their background.  Employment is one of the main constraints individuals have; without income or support from anyone else it is hard to support oneself. This causes many to reoffend because they end up going back into their prior situation, like breaking the law again. Unemployment is one of the main reasons why the majority of individuals offend in the first place. So to be put back in that same situation upon release could create old negative thoughts. Besides unemployment, the word “offender” itself, according to the documentary, creates barriers for individuals released from prison because it puts them in a box. It is almost as if they have no citizenship, they have no rights and they have no freedom. It’s like telling a dog they are free, and then put them in a backyard. They are free to run anywhere in that backyard but they can’t leave the gate. Its false advertisement: if you want to let individuals free, we must take titles off of them, create programs that have full case management and pass a law that make demands on certain employers to hire individuals with backgrounds.

The individuals interviewed in the video discussed desistance and how it can have a positive effect on individuals. With desistance, a domino effect can be created; if you have people around you that are succeeding, it inspires you to succeed. For example, in the video Greg had Terry, who came from the same exact state that he was in, but Terry found a way out. This is what motivated Greg to believe he could do the same thing. This gave Greg faith that he could succeed.  This kind of motivation happens in the re-entry programs where there are workers who have been incarcerated and who have turned their life around. These employees tell their clients their background and how successful they are now. But they don’t show them the exact steps to get there. Also, everyone’s situation is different, so the reason why the worker got the job might have been because of certain credentials, compared to someone without any work experience.

When I first started interning at the Osborne Association reentry program in Poughkeepsie, New York, I was so excited. I thought to myself, “Wow I will finally be able to help people with criminal history find jobs.” This was easier said than done. As I have worked at  this organization for several months now, I noticed the difference between helping individuals find places that are hiring and getting them a job. The reentry program is a non-profit organization so it is hard to help these reformed individuals get on the correct path in life, financially, mentally and socially.  They do try their best and the effort is noticed but at the same time it takes more than this reentry program to prevent these guys from reoffending. The reasons I say this is because I have witnessed many guys become frustrated with the program due to their lack of success with employment. Many of them have a family to take care of and some of them have no way to support themselves at all. They have completed the classes the program have to offer, they have attended the job fairs that were recommended to them, and developed a professional resume but still have not received means of employment.

Listening to these individuals cry for help is uncomfortable to me because I realized that it’s not the program that can do much helping, it is the government and it is the employers who have the right to turn these individuals away because of their background. Why turn them away? Denying them a job and benefits only increases the amount of violence that will occur in society. These individuals will do whatever it takes for them to survive. There is nowhere for these men to go, especially if they grow up in a low-income community. The majority of people stay in these social classes because they become comfortable with their current situation.

The Osborne Association does a lot to help the clients there but they can’t provide the amount of assistance needed because they do not have a full case management staff. They are not able to support their clients in a manner that will allow them to progress and succeed after they are released from prison. They do not have a full case management program because of finances; this takes away from a lot of success within the program itself. Not having full case management means that they don’t have enough money and workers to help individuals with housing, health insurance, and just directing them to helping resources on an everyday basis, which an organization that has the funds would be able to. The problem with this is that there are not many organizations who have the funds that actually exist. The government doesn’t provide a lot of funds for non-profit organizations. Instead the money is being invested in putting police on every corner to surveillance the blocks and neighborhoods of low-income communities.

Many other reentry programs have the same problem; this means that a lot of the people who enroll in these reentry programs only get help being directed in the correct direction for employment, they are told who to contact for health insurance, housing, and direct assistance with forms but they are not taught how to. Many of these individuals who receive information about who to contact never contact anyone because they are intimidated. They don’t know how to fill out certain forms for housing and Medicaid. I wouldn’t say that reentry programs do not help at all but I will say that they need more funds then they already have. The government still has a lot of work to do with trying to allow ex-offenders a second chance in society. If they want them to change their lives around, they can’t come home to the same messed up government. This leads me to think, “Are these reentry programs really beneficial?” Now, I know there are a lot of people who think, “Well, yeah, they give a lot of assistance when it comes to people being released from prison and not knowing where to start.” But then my question is “What happens when years later after being released they are still at the same program, looking for the same employment opportunities?” I have discussed this issue with many of the clients at Osborne. The reasons why they are frustrated and many of their complaints were, “because I don’t have any money.” My question is “How do we make these opportunities available for them?” Could the government itself have a say about employers hiring ex-offenders? Or is it entirely up the employers?

What really hurts the most is seeing my siblings struggle. Every day I think about ways to help them become successful, but I don’t have enough resources to do so. I am still trying and will never give up on them because I do know that there will be a time that I can say they have finally made it. And when I say finally made it I mean they can finally say they have a job, they can finally say they have their G.E.D.  It hurts to see them struggle and what hurts me the most is seeing my brother, who was the most recent to come home out of all of them, get denied from numerous jobs and programs. He is 26 years old, he has a child, and he lives with my mom. Although he lives with my mom, he has no one to support him because my mom is a single parent trying to survive on her own as well. My brother was released thinking that he would get into a program called Ready Willing and Able in order to have some kind of income. When he was released he couldn’t enter the program because they said he had to be currently living in a shelter. He went to another program and they told him the only way he could enroll was if he was on public assistance. So then he called me to see if I could help him: I called numerous places and majority of them either told me he had to have his G.E.D and others told me he was out of the age range. This was very upsetting, because I could tell he was upset and getting frustrated. For one he had no one to show him how to fill out applications in order to apply for public assistance he also needed help filling out documents to even enroll into any of the programs that he tried to. What made me angry is knowing that I couldn’t help although I was trying to.  His parole officer finally got him into a program, but the program only keeps you off of the streets. They do drug testing and they teach him certain employment skills. But they don’t help him find employment and they don’t help him with his G.E.D. I say all of this to say that it hurts seeing people who are trying to change their life around be forced to stay in the negative situation that they are in. My brother has reentered prison a number of times and what made him go back to doing crimes were situations such as this one.  I really want to change this, I am working on ways to find out how this would work but I know there is a solution to this big dilemma.

I believe all of this could change if the situation is discussed more in society and if more people realized that the government is the solution and not a reentry program itself. It takes more than just these programs to reenter individuals back in society the way they need to be. It also takes a lot of time and patience but if we all work together as a community it can get done.

Last night I had the pleasure of participating in what may well be the strangest public engagement of my life at the Salon Project at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. The Salon Project is a sort of ‘immersive theatre’ in which the whole audience goes backstage, gets dressed and made up, and then participates in a recreation of a Victorian era Parisian Salon — where the bourgeoisie meet for conversation and stimulation. Here’s what they did to me and my friends!

I think the idea of recreating the Salon and dressing us all up (as well as being an excuse for a fun night out) was to unsettle our assumptions about our identities and our society — and maybe about the idea of progress. My job was to talk for 10 minutes about ‘Punishment, Rehabilitation and Progress’… 

I’m a criminologist, so it may surprise you to know that I have spent the better part of my career and my life trying to work out how and why things get better. Firstly, living and working in a drug rehab, then as a criminal justice social worker, and now as a researcher, I’ve spent a long time either studying or trying to support progress in one way or another.

Much of the time, my focus has been on the sorts of personal progress that might come to mind if I use the word ‘rehabilitation’. In writing on that subject, I have described rehabilitation as a ‘fankle’ (which a French friend tells me translates from the Scots roughly as a ‘sac de noeuds’ or bag of knots). I’ve teased apart four strands in the fankle. In fact, I’ve been involved in making a documentary film about it, exploring how people travel ‘The Road from Crime’ (just Google it). Those of us involved reached the conclusion that rehabilitation is at least as much about social and legal processes of de-labeling and de-stigmatisation – of re-admission to citizenship and community – as it is about personal transformation. As well as personal change, rehabilitation is about social and political progress too.

However, I don’t plan to say any more about the rehabilitation of ‘offenders’ tonight; instead, I want to raise some questions about whether a nation – our nation — can be rehabilitated. If you don’t work in or pay much attention to criminal justice, you might well be wondering what exactly it is that I think needs ‘fixing’ here. Well, strangely enough, given tonight’s circumstances, our Victorian ancestors might have grasped my meaning immediately. Around the turn of the 20^th century, in the salons of this great city – or at least in the Glasgow Philosophical Society and in the City Chambers – Glaswegians were worrying not just about crime and delinquency, but about punishment itself.

Amongst others, Barlinnie’s reforming prison doctor, James Devon, and a local councillor, John Bruce Murray, were provoking public concern about the excessive use of custody for fine-defaulters. 43,000 Scottish people were received into prison on these grounds in 1904 (16,000 from Glasgow alone) at the rate of 800 per week; in Scotland at that time one person in 75 of the population was sent to prison that year; a rate twice that of England and Wales (City of Glasgow 1955, p9). Fifty years later, in a pamphlet summarising the history of the pioneering probation scheme that these reformers created, the authors recalled that ‘in view of the admittedly demoralising influence of imprisonment, the serious consideration of all was demanded concerning the welfare of the community’ (City of Glasgow 1955, p9).

Pause for a moment to take that in: imprisonment was not seen as the solution to the problem of crime; it was recognised as the driver of a sort of moral degeneration that threatened the welfare of the whole city. Fast forward a hundred years or so, and in 2008 we find the same debates recurring. The report of the independent Scottish Prisons Commission, chaired by Henry McLeish, ‘Scotland’s Choice’, similarly lamented Scotland’s apparent obsession with imprisonment. More specifically, it lamented our overuse of prisons, in that we continue to have one of the highest imprisonment rates in Europe, in spite of declining crime rates. And it bemoaned our misuse of prisons as overcrowded warehouses for the damaged, the traumatised, the troubling and the yet to be judged, rather than as places where we confine and rehabilitate the dangerous.

Now I’m guessing that – since you are into the Arts and you like dressing up – this might be a more woolly liberal crowd than most, but there may yet be some Daily Mail readers lurking amongst you, so let’s think a little about the moral aspect of punishment — and about the victim’s and the community’s legitimate demands for justice.

In fact, let’s get right back to basics and think about why offending is offensive. If human beings are to live in reasonably cooperative social groups, there need to be certain bonds of trust and reciprocity between us. Interestingly, this is one thing that evolutionary scientists and the major world religions seem to agree on. I rely on you not to violate my person or my property.  You rely on me to do likewise. When someone breaks these bonds of trust and reciprocity, we are rightly affronted and righteously angry. The function of punishment – at least as the famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim (who I suspect dressed a bit like this) argued – is to reinforce social solidarity; to remind us of the values we share, to affirm and express our collective conscience.

But here’s the rub: while imprisonment might work somehow and to some extent as a way of expressing and affirming our affronted sensibilities, for those subject it, imprisonment destroys the very reciprocities on which human society depends. Imprisonment by its very nature is a form of banishment and exclusion; but research also shows that it breaks down social bonds that are usually already fragile; that it disconnects prisoners from families and communities; that it diminishes rather than reinforcing any stake that the individual may have in conforming to social rules.

But it’s worse than that. As well as breaking social connections, prison does a kind of moral damage to prisoners too. Again, the Victorians were, in a sense, well ahead of the 20^th century evidence here. Charles Dickens wrote:

“I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay”.

Later scholars have revealed the ways in which imprisonment typically compels prisoners to close in on themselves; to defend themselves; to retrench; to withdraw. And herein lies the paradox of punishment: If our means of punishing diminish rather than enhancing the prospects of restoring and rebuilding trust and reciprocity, they damage us all; they damage us collectively. Sometimes we may need to imprison people to protect ourselves, but if we imprison too readily and unwisely, we harm society not just by ‘demoralising’ prisoners but by demoralising ourselves and our communities.

But it’s even worse than that… when we begin to withdraw from community, when we retreat into punishment and protect ourselves and out kith and kin with new forms and new technologies of security, we diminish the reciprocities on which our security ultimately depends. ‘Socio-spatial criminologists’ (who study the links between places, spaces and crime) suggest that cohesion – which is linked to both civic activism and social trust – and community capital – which is about the personal and inter-personal resources that reside in communities – are linked to low crime rates. Conversely, lack of cohesion and lack of capital are criminogenic or crime-generating.

So, to sum up our condition, we in Scotland rely overmuch on a form of punishment – imprisonment – that breaks down social ties, that damages the moral capacities of prisoners and that diminishes the personal and social resources that make us all safer. Our approach to doing justice destroys the reciprocities that justice should serve to restore.

But can we rehabilitate a nation? Let me finish my going back to the processes of personal transformation involved in rehabilitation. It turns out that people desist from offending as a result of becoming more mature, developing positive ties, and re-crafting their identities in constructive ways. Maybe the rehabilitation of a nation is similar.  Changing the way we do things – progressive social and political transformation — might rest on the same three things. Certainly, when it comes to punishment, Scotland urgently needs to grow up, to repair social relationships and to learn to see herself differently.