Discovering Desistance

Today I was on the south coast, just into Cornwall (Saltash), presenting at a day conference of people involved in TurnAround, Devon and Cornwall’s Integrated Offender Management Project. You can download the slides below (or on the Useful Resources page):

Threats, Bribes and the Power of Persuasion

As the title suggests, I was trying (not for the first time), to link compliance theory, desistance research and IOM. But I was also trying out some new ideas that have been brewing up about reciprocity. A couple of times on this blog or via Twitter, I’ve asked the question ‘What good is justice?’, or perhaps better ‘What (sort of) good is justice (trying to produce?’

I’ve been tussling with this question for a year or so now; partly as a result of the related challenge from many people to say a bit more about what comes after desistance; what is life beyond ‘mere’ desistance supposed to look like. I have sometimes tried to answer that question in terms of people finding their way to better lives as better citizens in better communities (governed by a better State). I still think that’s important, but more recently, inspired partly by being required (for other reasons) to re-read around the concepts of social capital and (separately) Durkheim’s work on social solidarity, I’ve been pushed again and again back to this question about the positive good that justice delivers (beyond the minimisation of harms).

In a word, I think it’s about reciprocity. Interestingly, the importance of reciprocity is something that evolutionary scientists and the major world religions can agree on. Margaret Atwood’s brilliant little book on ‘Payback’ (2008) provides a compelling overview of the importance of reciprocity to human development and civilisation.

The failure of reciprocity is what makes offending offensive (it’s also what makes tax avoidance, excessive unsustainable first world consumption and, some might say, private education and health, offensive). To  a large extent, the point of justice is to reinforce  and restore reciprocities — to make it OK for people to rely on one another’s reciprocal respect. While that doesn’t say anything, in and of itself about how we should do justice (and punishment), it does invite us to come up with ways of reinforcing and restoring reciprocities that don’t actively harm people’s ability to fulfil reciprocal obligations. It is inherent in punishments that harm people — and that thus force them to act so as to defend their selves psychologically (like imprisonment) — that they damage reciprocity (at least for those directly involved), even if the broader message that they send might somehow succeed in expressing and reinforcing solidarity (as Durkheim might have said).

This guest post comes from David Honeywell…

I’ve struggled with an identity crisis since as long as I can remember. It’s what led me to act out my role as a ‘gangster’ while rubbing shoulders with the Newcastle underworld; it’s what made me carry knives because it made me feel I was a tough guy; it’s what made me tell people I was a university lecturer before I’d even graduated; and it’s what made me tell people I was a journalist before I had anything published.

I was so desperate to be accepted and to belong, and so disgusted about who I really was that I invented various personas.  The only time my identity crises made sense to me was when I was later diagnosed with having borderline personality disorder. Even so, I did in fact achieve all the above identities, eventually – except I was no gangster.

The whole identity problem continues to this day. But now, rather than being personally confused as I was before receiving psychiatric treatment, the problem is forced upon me by society.

It’s all very well achieving things and proving yourself on your journey to reform but the stigma of being an ‘ex-offender’ sometimes won’t allow us to fully re-integrate. So although I had achieved what I had set out to do, one part of society that was still putting obstacles in my way was the employment sector.  I may have become qualified to start a new career but it seemed it would never be enough.

My journey to becoming a reformed offender began in 2000 when I almost lost my freedom yet again. I had been released from prison in 1998 where I went straight to Northumbria University in Newcastle. Living a Jekyll and Hyde existence had become the ‘norm’ for me juggling my studies alongside my seedy underworld existence.

I never really settled and was hauled before Newcastle Crown Court on serious assault charges. I had been in court many times over the years, but this time was different. This time I had something to lose. I was a university student with prospects who, amazingly,  had somehow managed to get through my first two years.

Luckily I received probation rather than jail time so I left Newcastle for good in 2000 and moved back to Teesside where I finally began to settle for the first time since leaving prison.  I transferred to Teesside University and though it was to become a massive turning point in my life, it was also the most bizarre part of the journey. Stepping out from the doorway of Middlesbrough probation offices where I’d spent all day talking through anger issues with probation staff and other offenders, I’d look across to the other side of the road at the sign facing me saying, University of Teesside, with a growing pride inside me.

‘This time last year I was looking at going back to prison’, I thought to myself.  It was the weirdest feeling as I stepped out from the probation offices and into the entrance leading to the university ten yards away into what seemed like a parallel universe. How two worlds can collide is bizarre. Half of my identity was an ‘offender’ on probation – the other half, a postgraduate student where I felt I belonged; in a culture that accepted me.

I hadn’t realised it at the time, but your punishment doesn’t start until you are released from prison and for the aging ‘reformed offender’ there are two issues to deal with. Not only a criminal record along with all the prejudices that comes with that but eventually age prejudice will creep in too. In my case, I have three prejudices to juggle, the criminal record, my age and a history of mental health issues. But I will be eternally grateful to the probation services for giving me the nudge I needed. My time with them spanned eighteen months but it was the most cleansing part of my criminal journey being forced to face my demons and communicate this to a room full of people.

If there was ever an example where community sentencing works over prison, this was it and I can say I have experienced it, for had I gone to prison I doubt it would have done anything for me except make me more volatile. I would have re-entered society as I had before with even more criminal contacts and a thirst for revenge.  For my whole aspiration to become part of the underworld was born from the desire to wreak revenge on all those who had done me wrong in my younger years when I was too shy and too timid to fight back.

Three years into my studies my thinking began to change and in 2001 I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Criminology, by which time my identity was that of a graduate. For the first time in my life I felt as though I was now a real person. I was now working towards a Masters degree which I gained in 2003 and, by the time this happened, I was a changed person. Once I had reached this stage I had a new confidence to achieve anything. I went on and achieved a City and Guilds in teaching but once again reality was to hit me like a sledgehammer.

I was the victim of my own success, forgetting that although I had achieved what I had, I would never really be allowed to fully reintegrate. In 2003, I was so excited after being offered a sociology teaching post at Middlesbrough College but my elation was short lived as my criminal record raised its ugly head again. And rather than facing another rejection, I politely turned down the job offer.

The following year, I gave up job hunting after too many rejections to remember. I realised that interviewers and employers faced with a ‘rap sheet’ were unable to make objective decisions; it was easier for them to just not take things any further – not to mention the growing amount of jobs that are CRB checked leaving you falling at the first hurdle.

That was why I decided to become self employed and, in 2004, I decided to try the world of journalism. I worked tirelessly writing and contributing articles for newspapers for little return except seeing my name in the press as a respected writer instead of in the courts section. This was enough to drive me on as it was another identity breakthrough.

It became addictive and in 2005 a feature article was in the York Press with subsequent articles in both now the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette and again in the York Press. In 2007 one of my articles about my grandfather’s heroics was used in a book, Time Past: The Story of York.

Then in 2008, I got my first paid writing work through Redcar and Cleveland Councils’ business enterprise team. I wrote press releases for local fledgling businesses they had funded and supported.  I had spent four years honing my skills and shaping my career though I was never certain it would actually happen.  In 2009, I launched a successful local newspaper, Coastal View, and in 2012 set up my book publishing company.

I am no longer bitter towards the system for alienating me; rather I am grateful for being made to jump ship. Had they not forced me into a corner, I’d never have discovered my entrepreneurial skills. My identity crisis is finally over and instead of being a fantasist and trying to prove myself to others while being ashamed of myself, I am now able to tell people I am an author, publisher and writer, knowing it’s the truth.

David Honeywell  BSc (Hons) MSc MRSPH
Author & Publisher
David Honeywell Associates Ltd/Nocton Publishing Ltd

Email: david.honeywell@yahoo.co.uk Tel: (01642) 275052 / Mob: 07907 511564

Steve Duncan is a performance poet who has been working with Chantelle Smith from Avon and Somerset Probation Trust. Currently he is working towards developing desistance based workshops for Criminal Justice agencies. Steve has set up his own blog (at www.blessheadsteven.blogspot.co.uk  – his Twitter is @BlessheadSteven and his email is blesshead@hotmail.com ) and has asked us to post this here:

When examining the life of an offender and those wishing to desist from crime, there are certain points that need very careful consideration.

We live in a society that likes to condemn the socially excluded. We tend to use language and labels that enable individuals to stay stuck in the guilt and shame of their wrong doings. In the pursuit of political correctness we are doing a great disservice. You wouldn’t dream of calling a heterosexual person that decided they wanted to enter a same sex relationship as an ex-heterosexual! What we need is a common language that affirms hope for the future.

An individual is no more an ex-offender than they are a future law abider. They have just made choices that society would deem unacceptable. To date the best terminology that we have been able to come up with is desister, but there’s still a slight problem with this. Whether or not the individual has stopped committing offences, it still has it’s definition based in crime. We are people with convictions who still have a right to dignity, opportunity and freedom!

I myself am a quote, unquote, ex-offender. I know only too well how the stigmas, beliefs and attitudes can compound the already negative self measures that we tell ourselves. Even for those wishing to implement real change in their lives.

Take for example a guy with several years, maybe even decades of entrenched offending fuelled with substance misuse, addiction issues. Consider the frustration of not knowing how to stop. Try to get a picture of a person who already feels like a failure. The core of their existence, shot through with different levels of guilt, shame, remorse and fear.

Imagine being trapped in a cycle that you cannot, in and of yourself, break free from. The constant battle of CRB clearance, employment, trying to go straight. Just to be accepted as a responsible and productive member of society.

It is indeed a struggle that requires deep levels of commitment, faith and perseverance. See, what I really need is hope; hope is a drug that every offender needs! Surely what we really want is to feel good about ourselves, to feel useful. What we really need is opportunities to do something different with our lives. Clearly we as a society and as professionals that work in the industry, have much to learn about the therapeutic process of desistance and how to help individuals move from hopelessness to hope and optimism.

I certainly don’t have all the answers; I am not a qualified sociologist or criminologist. I don’t have any letters after my name; I merely have experiences that I believe to be relevant, valid and potentially helpful to the cause.

It’s high time we realised that we don’t need academics to tell our story. We do however need them to help use make sense of our experience, to break down the struggle so together we can find workable solutions.

On that note let me point this out. There are clearly many of us that have managed to stop offending and go on to carve out successful lives for ourselves. Surely it stands to reason that we have much benefit to offer Criminal Justice practice.

I believe knowledge and experience is a synergy vital to effectiveness and professionalism. It may pay dividends to start taking our voices more seriously. It might be useful to take bigger risks in opening doors and creating employment opportunities for people with convictions to work alongside professionals in a paid capacity, qualified and unqualified! For the therapeutic value of one desister helping another is without parallel. Moreover, desistance taken on a new meaning when an individual realises his experience can benefit someone else. Why don’t we start our own support groups? Create spaces where we can support and encourage each other.

Finally I have every faith that with the steadfast commitment, determination and perseverance, we can together change the shape of the old age lie, once a criminal always a criminal.

I was honoured to be invited by the French Ministry of Justice to speak to what they refer to as a Conference of Consensus (a bit like a citizen’s jury, but with experts as the jury instead of laypeople). The report based on this and the presentations given last week are now available on the web:

http://conference-consensus.justice.gouv.fr/

The videos of the presentations are available here (for my own presentation click on “Partie 2 B)” on the righthand banner). For some reason the questions which followed the presentations – also given by Lila Kazemian – come before the video of the actual talks themselves:

http://conference-consensus.justice.gouv.fr/category/la-conference/partie-2-reflexions-et-preconisations/b-presentation-des-etudes-sur-la-desistance-et-sur-les-facteurs-de-risques/

For those of you who can speak French (sadly, I can’t) there was a preceding session (“Partie 2 A)”) which involved several people who had been convicted talking (I think) about how they made the break from involvement in crime. Rob Canton also gave a presentation (Partie 2 D) is where you’ll find the video of his talk).

I thought that this approach was a wonderful one. I’d love to see the English and Welsh Ministry of Justice hold a similar conference of censensus on this topic as part of their own much talked of ‘rehabilitation revolution’, but I can’t imagine they’d do it.

Just for the record, Martine Herzog-Evans tells me that the French government does not have to act on any of these suggestions at all, and may only decide to develop some of the thoughts aired.Martine has also blogged about this (in French and English) here:

http://herzog-evans.com/conference-de-consensusle-rapport-consensus-conference-the-report/

With best wishes,

Steve

An earlier version of this post first appeared in the Scotsman on 11th March, 2013:

Most criminologists agree that one of the drivers of spiralling prison populations in the UK and the USA in the last quarter of the twentieth century was the increasingly feverish penal politics associated with a bidding war around which party was toughest on crime (or more accurately, on ‘criminals’).

For that reason, many commentators have been intrigued by the emergence in the USA of a ‘Right on Crime’ movement within the Republican Party, championed by hardliners like Newt Gingrich (one of the candidates in the 2012 presidential primaries). The surprise is that these right-wingers are now advocating the shrinking of the prison population. Odd as this ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion to penal reform may seem, it has an obvious logic. These are conservatives who favour small state, low tax policies and who have awoken to the fact that penal expansionism (even where it creates private sector growth) violates both values. Influenced by these ideas, and by their financial crises, several US states not known for progressive penal approaches have recently seen unprecedented declines in their prison populations.

Informed by these developments, the Howard League for Penal Reform (in England and Wales) has begun asking UK Conservatives to take note. Last week, they published a pamphlet on Intelligent Justice that I co-authored with two English criminologists – Professors Mike Hough and Steve Farrall.

Intelligent Justice tries to advance us beyond the perennial and futile debate about the relative merits of custodial and community-based sentences. It responds in part to an earlier paper by Professor Ken Pease, published by Civitas, which argued in favour of custodial sentencing as an effective means of reducing reoffending through incapacitating people who offend. Being much more sceptical about such prison effects, we argue that at least some of the crimes notionally prevented by incapacitating prisoners may in fact simply be deferred or committed by others who fill the ‘vacancy’ their absence creates. More to the point, the total volume of offending by those incarcerated may be amplified in the longer run; prison has many perverse, unintended and adverse effects. When, as Ken Pease did, we try to put a monetary value on incapacitation’s crime reducing effects, these and other complexities need to be take into account.

But leaving the technicalities aside, Intelligent Justice also raises more fundamental questions about punishment; questions of purpose. Crime reduction, we argue, is not the only (and not even the first) purpose of criminal justice. Punishment imposes harms on citizens, so it must always be carefully bounded and governed by law. We may take different views about the merits of imposing pain on people for reasons of retribution, but most of us can probably agree that merely imposing pains without also seeking to restore people to good citizenship is both morally wrong and counterproductive since it leaves the whole community weakened.

For these reasons, we argue that the merits of sanctions should be judged on at least three criteria: their parsimony (meaning that the punishment must never exceed that which is just), their support for positive change and their effects on reintegration. Justice is not only about writing wrongs, it is about restoring relationships, about renewing reciprocal obligations, about reinforcing social solidarity. If our means of punishing don’t correspond to those ends, then our system of justice is in trouble – and so, ultimately, is our society.

Decent societies need people to comply with the law for normative or moral reasons (and eventually out of habit) more than because of fear or threat. Indeed, that is arguably one of their defining characteristics. As it happens, it is also a lot less expensive that financing a punishment apparatus that seeks to compel compliance but (if reoffending rates are any measure) is woefully incapable of doing so.

The full report can be accessed at: http://d19ylpo4aovc7m.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/howard_league/user/online_publications/Intelligent_Justice.pdf

Charlie Ryder has asked me to post this for him. As well as outlining why so many people are starting to feel uncomfortable with the term “ex-offender” he starts the tricky process of finding new terms to replace this one.

Steve

Why are the labels offender and ex-offender so offensive?

When I was released from prison in 1996, I had no idea that the label ‘ex-offender’ would be used against me for the rest of my life. In fact, it came to shape the hearts and minds of the many people who discriminated against me, as CRB checks saw my many application forms drop into HR dustbins.

I now run a mentoring scheme for people in prison. I believe it’s important to treat people the way you want to be treated. In my case that means unconditional love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness and a non-judgemental attitude. I feel ‘ex-offender’ is a permanent label based purely on the worst thing you have ever done and I find it deeply offensive.

For some time now, I’ve been asking others whether they find the term ‘ex-offender’ as offensive as I do.

Performance poet Mr Gee runs poetry workshops in prison. He feels the term “ex-offender” sonically invites the listener to focus on the word “offender” – the past as opposed to the future. He says, “This creates a tragic cycle where the individual isn’t allowed to move on. The term “ex-offender” doesn’t aid the rehabilitation process. None of us would like to be judged by the lowest point in our lives.”

Members of an online forum provided by Unlock, a national charity for people with convictions have recently debated this issue. Executive director Chris Bath told me, “Some people feel ‘ex-offender’ is a powerful statement of where they’ve been and proudly take ownership of the term. But most just want to be referred to in the same way as everyone else; Charlie the playwright, Karen the criminologist, Steve the fantastic dad”.

Like me, Chris feels a change of language is critical if we are to tackle the life sentence of stigma attached to even a minor criminal record. He told me, “One Work Programme provider I spoke to recently referred to ‘PG9s’, a reference to the way claimants are categorised. People used to talk about ‘blacks’ and ‘gays’. It’s a dehumanising technique. If it is absolutely critical that we refer to the characteristic, we need to think in terms of people with convictions.”

Author, blogger and professional speaker Shaun Attwood summed it up like this, “Ex-offender – the word offender has too much negative connotation. Person with conviction is less dehumanising”.

Emilia di Girolamo is a TV scriptwriter and producer who spent 8 years running drama programmes in prison. She told me, “I love that term ‘person with conviction’. I actually love the double meaning. To succeed after prison you need real conviction because the odds are stacked against you. I shall start using it myself. It only takes a few people and eventually works its way into the mainstream.”

Filmmaker and PhD student Deirdre O’Neill questions the use of the label ‘offender’ even more fundamentally. She suggests that, “Before we use the word “offender’ to describe someone who is in prison we should unpack the meaning of this word when it’s applied in this context. What and who are prisoners offending?” She feels that prisoners, mostly from working class backgrounds and let down by the system, are the “casualties of capitalism, the homeless, the mentally ill, the politically angry, warehoused away and punished. Then they are called offenders.”

In January I attended ‘A Workable Revolution’, a conference organised by the criminal justice group No-offence!. Richard Branson recorded a video for the event in which he used the phrase, “people with convictions”. So perhaps Emilia di Girolamo is right – perhaps we have started a rehabilitation revolution of our own.

Charlie Ryder

I thought people might find the following letter (to the Editor of the Herald) interesting. It’s a response to a lot of media coverage today of comments made by the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to the Justice Committee yesterday. I’m guessing the central points may be as important in other jurisdictions where a combination of cost cutting and populism might adversely affect prison regimes….

Dear Editor,

Like many other news outlets, today’s Herald carries a story about comments of the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, Colin McConnell in evidence to to the Justice Committee. His ideas regarding prisoners’ access to phones and TVs in their cells appear to have generated a lot of heat but not much light but both his comments and the adverse reaction to them perhaps need to be analysed in the context of evidence both about the experience of imprisonment and about the process of desistance from crime.

There are many research studies suggest that maintaining positive family ties is often crucial in supporting people to stop offending. It is obvious why that is the case. For most of us, the wellbeing of those that we love is a primary motivation to lead a decent life. However, one of the many paradoxical and counterproductive effects of imprisonment is that, in order to survive it, many prisoners (especially those serving longer sentences) actively distance themselves from their families so as to make the pains of imprisonment less intense. Rather than, as we sometimes imagine, compelling people to confront their crimes, imprisonment tends to force them to adapt and survive. Recent research – for example, by Marguerite Schinkel at the University of Edinburgh – suggests that while distancing themselves from the outside world may help people cope with life inside prison, it makes reintegration after imprisonment even more difficult.

Some readers, and judging by some of their reactions, some politicians might wonder why they should care about this. Leaving aside basic humanitarian principles, we ought to care because failures to rehabilitate and reintegrate affect the whole of society, not least by driving up reoffending rates. But if that isn’t a good enough reason for the more punitive amongst us, consider this: having phones in cells might make imprisonment more painful, by reminding prisoners of what they have lost.

So before bemoaning Mr McConnell’s comments as further evidence of ‘soft-touch Scotland’, we might want to resist our baser impulses, stop and think and try to develop a more mature reaction (much as we hope that prisoners will learn to do). In the penal system as in the economy, there is scant evidence that austerity works; if we want to see positive growth and development, we need to invest in it.

Yours,

Fergus McNeill

Professor of Criminology & Social Work

Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research

University of Glasgow

Two discovering desistance workshops were held in the Wirral in November and December 2012.  The workshops were attended by probation officers and workers, partners of Merseyside Probation Trust, current and previous service users and their families. This workshops were funded by the Merseyside Probation Trust and facilitated by Stephen Farrall and myself.  We have produced a report based on the contributions at the workshops, available here.

A number of next steps and actions were identified during the workshops.  Colleagues from the Merseyside Probation Trust are currently working to develop an action plan to take these suggestions forward.

We look forward to hearing what happens next and would like to thank everyone involved in the workshops for their contributions.

This came may way yesterday: I thought that people could either send their comments directly, or, if there was sufficient interest, could blog responses here and we could arrange to send in a ‘collective’ response.

With best wishes,

Stephen

Today the Government has published a consultation paper, ‘Transforming Rehabilitation: a revolution in the way we manage offenders’. The paper sets out proposals to transform the way offenders are managed in the community, extend rehabilitative provision and ensure value for money.

Despite significant efforts, and increases in government spending, during the past decade, reoffending rates remain high. In 2010, 47.5% of prisoners were reconvicted within a year of release and these rates are even higher among offenders released from custody with no probation supervision. Although progress has been made to reduce reoffending rates we need to go further and faster.

To achieve the necessary improvements to offender management we are proposing to open up the delivery of services to more providers and to deliver services across broader geographical areas. These reforms would also allow us to extend rehabilitation services to a further 46,000 offenders each year who leave prison from short sentences, the great majority of which currently receive no statutory probation support.

The Government is, however, very clear about the value and expertise of probation staff in working with offenders and we want the new system to harness fully their skills and experience. The full consultation document can be found here.

The paper includes the Government’s response to the March 2012 Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services consultation, and sets out how our proposals have developed.

We shall be consulting on these proposals until 22 February and would welcome your views on the questions posed. We will be running a programme of events to support the consultation and development work. I hope that you will be able to attend one of the planned consultation events.

We are planning to hold half day consultation events for stakeholders in London, Birmingham, York and Cardiff.

Further details of all these events will be communicated very shortly.

We welcome a wide range of views on this consultation. You can respond online or submit responses to:

For any enquiries, please email: transforming.rehabilitation@justice.gsi.gov.uk or call 020 33342477.

You can follow the conversation about #TransformingRehabilitation on Twitter @MoJGovUK and @MoJPress.