Stopping the revolving door for short sentenced prisoners

Blenheim CDP seminar 22 April 2013

Dominic Williamson - chief executiveRevolving Doors Agency

Outline

• About Revolving Doors Agency• Policy context• Why focus on short sentenced prisoners?• Multiple and complex needs• What works? Services and systems• Discussion

What Revolving Doors is for

Our mission is to change systems and improve services for people with multiple and complex needs who are in contact with the criminal justice system.

We demonstrate and share evidence of effective interventions and promote reform of public services through partnerships with national and local political leaders, policy makers, commissioners and other experts and by involving people with direct experience of the problem in all our work.

What Revolving Doors does:

Development & partnerships

Policy and communications

Service user involvement

Policy contextCoalition Agreement 2010• “We will introduce a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ that will pay independent providers to reduce

reoffending, paid for by the savings this new approach will generate within the criminal justice system”

• Deficit reduction – MoJ 23% cut in this spending round• Cuts to council budgets• Localism• Reform and structural change across health, policing, etc• Focus on integration – Health & wellbeing boards, JSNAs, directors of public health,

Police & Crime Commissioners (MOPAC in London)• NHS mandate and public health outcomes framework• IOM and liaison and diversion• Community budgets, PbR and Social Impact Bonds

• Cost of re-offending – £9.5 – £11 Billion per year

Policy contextDavid Cameron, prime minister, October 2012:

– “Today rehabilitation just goes to those who have been inside for a year or more. But that misses all those who go in for short sentences yet reoffend time and time again. So I want to look at making them part of the rehabilitation revolution too.”

Chris Grayling, justice secretary, January 2013:– “Offenders often lead chaotic lives: Broken homes, drug and alcohol

misuse, generational worklessness, abusive relationships, childhoods spent in care, mental illness, and educational failure are all elements so very common in the backgrounds of so many of our offenders. And right now, we are failing to turn their lives around. In fact, those released from short-term sentences, who have the highest reoffending rates get no support on release at all.”

Short sentenced prisoners are majority of those entering and leaving prison each year

6%3%

64%

19%

8%

Prison population 31 Dec 2012(excl remand)

Short sentenced - less than 6 monthsShort sentenced - 6 - 12 months4 years or more (exclud-ing indeterminate sen-tences)Indeterminate sentencesRecalls, fine defaulters & others

48%

10%

40%

1% 1%

Prison receptions in year to Oct 2012 (excl remand)

Short sentenced - less than 6 monthsShort sentenced - 6 - 12 months4 years or more (exclud-ing indeterminate sen-tences)Indeterminate sentencesRecalls, fine defaulters & others

SSPs make up 9% of prison population but 58% of receptions into prison

Re-offending rates are highest for SSPs

All offenders All finishing prison sentence

Domestic burglary

Reoffending by drug misusers

Short sentenced prisoners

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

Proven one year re-offending rate

Proven one year re-offending rate

Trends in re-offending by sentence length

What’s going on?

In 2011 we reviewed the evidence of the needs of short sentenced prisoners

• Three-pronged approach:– Literature review; Interviews with key stakeholders– Focus group

• Large-scale prison surveys:– e.g. Stewart (2008); Niven & Stewart (2005)

• Data from resettlement projects:– e.g. Resettlement Pathfinders (Lewis et al, 2003); West Mercia

Connect Programme (Leary & Thomas, 2007)• Other research on short-term prisoners:

– e.g. Brooker et al, (2009); Maguire et al (2000)• Wider research on the needs of all prisoners.

This concluded that SSPs have multiple needs

Prisoners surveyed for the SPCR had an average of three needs, while clients of the pathfinders averaged six problems, four significant (Stewart, 2008; Lewis et al, 2003).

• Practical – housing, debt etc• Family, relationships and social networks• Health and disability• Substance abuse• Underlying emotional problems and poor mental health resulting from

history of being in care as a child, abuse, neglect, violence, bereavement, isolation and self harm

• Behavioural and attitudinal problems, including anger management, hopelessness, institutionalisation, impulsivity.

Structural / environmentCommunityOpportunitiesQuality services

Public attitudesMedia

Multiple needs: understand the dynamic

Self : MindResilience

Cognitive abilityThoughts /

emotionPerceptions

/beliefsChildhood

ContributionInvolvement

LearningWork

Basic needsHousingMoneySafety

HealthMentalPhysical

Treatment

SocialFamilyLove

FriendsGroup identity

Multiple needs: negative dynamic

Structural / environmentPovertyUnemploymentQuality of services

DiscriminationStigmaNegative media

Self – MindMental / physical

painNegative self

imagePoor cognitive /

social abilityComplex trauma

ContributionExclusion

UnemploymentCrime - prison

Basic needsRent arrears

EvictionHomelessnessRough sleeping

Poverty

HealthCommon MH

problemsPoor physical

healthNo contact with

GP

SocialFamily

breakdownIsolation

Negative peer groups

No trusted relationship

Outsider identity

Multiple needs: negative dynamic

Structural / environmentPovertyUnemploymentQuality of services

DiscriminationStigmaNegative media

Self – MindMental / physical

painNegative self

imagePoor cognitive /

social abilityComplex trauma

ContributionExclusion

UnemploymentCrime - prison

Basic needsRent arrears

EvictionHomelessnessRough sleeping

Poverty

HealthCommon MH

problemsPoor physical

healthNo contact with

GP

SocialFamily

breakdownIsolation

Negative peer groups

No trusted relationship

Outsider identity

Drug & alcohol

dependency

Interaction between multiple & complex needs and services

Chaotic lives, challenging behaviour,

disengagement

Multiple &

complex needs

Poor service

response

The research literature also confirms what service users tell us: that when they have multiple needs people experience a poorer

response from services

• Complex Responses (2011) identified a number of negative elements in their experience of frontline services

• Driven by

Mismatch in expectations

Poor quality of staff-client relationship

Fragmented Service response

Complexity

Delay

Service exclusion/denial

Limited Resources

Limited Resources

Inadequate Staffed Services

Inadequate Staffed Services

Strategic PrioritisationStrategic Prioritisation

Inadequate Provision of Services

Inadequate Provision of Services

What works / what doesn’t?

Community police Custody Court

Probation

Prison

CJ Liaison & diversion

Link worker or similar role

Primary health care

Psychiatric hospital IAPT

Drug & Alcohol

treatment

Benefits, money &

debt advice

Secti

on 1

36

Integrated Offender Management (IOM)

CMHT HousingA & E

Chaos, crisis, crime

Community Sentence

Place of safety

Recovery

Where do we find the solution?

• Combining evidence from:– Desistance theory and research from criminology – Recovery agenda in mental health– Drug treatment and recovery– Psychology, person centred counselling and psychotherapy– Homelessness – e.g. resettlement– Evaluation of projects and programmes, e.g.

• Linkworker schemes• Adults facing chronic exclusion pilots• Elmore project, Oxford etc

Desistance theory – Fergus McNeill

Age and Maturation

Subjectivities, Narratives, Identities

Interactions/

Relationships

Life Transitions,

Social Bonds

So, what does works?• Building a relationship

– ‘Someone on your side’ - A trusted relationship within a team – Assertive, persistent outreach and engagement, choice of worker?– Promoting hope, motivation and agency, building on assets and strengths, building self-

efficacy– Clinical supervision for caseworkers – support around difficult emotional response /

‘projection’– Consideration of case loads – intensity of work

• Understanding the individual– Applies a holistic, psychosocial understanding of multiple and complex needs, including

impact of complex trauma and centrality of relationships / family.– Package of support tailored to individual’s needs, capabilities, gender and culture– Flexible approach, responsive in crisis and relapse– Personal budget / spot purchase of additional support?– Co-produced with service user – ownership of outcomes and plan– Case management with key service providers – planning / troubleshooting

So, what does work?• Service design

– Community based but linked to each stage of criminal justice system– Coordination of services, brokering access and creating integrated pathways especially

treatment and housing– Requires capacity to work with local commissioners and service providers to negotiate

new pathways into services.– Links with communities – goal is integration and connection in community

• Service user involvement– Arnstein’s ladder of involvement– Peer involvement in delivery – peer mentors? – drawing on experience of recovery– Peer research and evaluation

• Strategic– Supported by strategic stakeholders and commissioners– Gathers data to demonstrate impact, including cost benefits

The building blocks of change

Emergency – Crisis and crime, sleeping rough, arrested, in A&E, leaving prisonOutreach, engagement, immediate access to accommodation

Stabilizing – supported accommodation, basic needs met, building trusting relationship, assessment care pathway

planning, harm minimisation

Change – motivation, treatment, identity, building self-efficacy, user involvement

Consolidation– preparing for work, volunteering, training

Initial difficulties

Problems accumulating

Imminent crisis

Community Resilience through

relationships

Self efficacy – Albert Bandura

Self efficacy

Mastery experience

(Been there, done that)

Vicarious experience (modelling)

Somatic & emotional states

(anxiety / depression etc)

Discussion

• Does the concept of multiple needs that I have outlined correspond to your experience?

• What knowledge and competencies would be needed in a team delivering this sort of service?

• What are the similarities and differences between what you do now and what would be involved in this kind of service?

Into the future...

• Justice reforms• Justice reinvestment• Troubled families programme• Greater integration – JSNAs, MOPAC etc• Big Lottery Fulfilling Lives programme

• Tri-borough community budget

Thank you

dominic.williamson@revolving-doors.org.uk

www.revolving-doors.org.uk

https://twitter.com/RevDoors