Programmes which are shown to deliver positive results with offenders will receive formal accreditation. They will form part of the developing menu of effective programmes for the probation service and this will be known as the “core curriculum”. It will include top quality programmes that can be run inside prison and in the community; covering the most types of offences and the most types of offenders. Programmes will take into account needs and accessibility issues for all offenders in an effort to minimise disadvantages.
Getting the right offender on the right programme is essential to success. A single system for the assessment of offenders (known as OASys) is being used by the Prison Service and Probation Services throughput England and Wales. OASys has for purposes;
- to assess how likely the offender is to re-offend and the likely seriousness of the type of offence he/she is likely to commit;
- To identify and classify offending related needs including basic personality characteristics and cognitive and behavioural problems and measure changes in these over time;
- To provide a systematic framework for the assessment of risk of harm (harm to others and harm to self).
- To provide a system for translating the assessment into a practical supervision or sentence plan targeted at reducing an offenders likelihood of re-offending and the seriousness of any such offence.
(National Probation Service for England and Wales. “OASys: The New Offender Assessment System”. Issue 3 – Spring 2003)
Using offender behaviour programmes is believed to be a better way of working because it means resources – not only money, but the skills and time of prison and probation staff too – are directed in ways which are known to achieve positive results with offenders. The belief is that before ‘What Works’, there was no means of proving results or recording the benefits of good practice. Accrediting successful programmes and using them as mainstream models would ensure the whole probation service learns and benefits from existing good practice.
The findings of recent research into the effectiveness of cognitive skills programmes in rehabilitating prisoners present a somewhat confusing picture. The most recent evaluation of cognitive skills programmes, published by the Home Office in 2003, found no difference in the reconviction rates for prisoners who had participated in either an Enhanced Thinking Skills or Reasoning and Rehabilitation programme between 1996 and 1998. (, “Addressing Offending Behaviour”, 1st November 2005)
In comparison, other research shows that properly conducted programmes of intervention can have a significant effect on reconviction rates. Typically the effect has been around 10-15% reduction compared to offenders who did not attend structured programmes:
“Aggression Replacement Training (ART), a programme developed in Wilshire,
which aims to tackle problems of violent offenders. A recent study shows that
those attending the course had a reconviction rate of 20.4% compared with
34.5% for those who had not”. (RDS, Home Office 2000).
‘A limited number of studies of the effectives of these types of programmes have been done in Germany and recently in Sweden’. The only major UK Study of the effectives of such programmes was one carried out over five years ago, by Raynor and Vanstone (1997) that utilised the Canadian “Reasoning and Rehabilitation”. (Burnett & Roberts 2004).
Reasoning and Rehabilitation (r & r) was designed by Frank Porprnio and Elizabeth Fabiano of T3 Associates from Canada which has recently been revised to enhance resposivity and learning. The sessions were designed to build thinking or ‘cognitive’ skills in a progressive manner and to move offenders through stages of change – from accepting the existence of problems, decision-making about choices, taking action, maintaining new behaviours and preventing relapse through learning to monitor and self-correct thinking in new situations. The programme is suitable for highly convicted offenders, for use in prisons and in the community. (, “Working With Offenders; Offending Behaviour Programmes”, 7th November 2005)
This study shows that actual and predicted reconviction rates (44%) were the same for offenders who undertook it (including completers and non completers and offenders who did not, after 12 months follow-up. Of the 107 offenders who were required to attend as a condition of their Probation Orders, 59 completed the programme successfully. These completers achieved lower than predicted reconviction rates after 12 months and were substantially less likely to receive custodial sentences upon reconviction. Yet, this apparently favourable outcome was not maintained when the follow up continued for 24 months. (Burnett & Roberts, 2004)
Other similar programmes include, ‘Think First’ which is a cognitive behavioural programme; designed by James McGuire, who is a world authority on effective interventions with offenders, teaching problem solving skills and applies these skills to offending behaviour. Skills taught include moral reasoning, perspective talking, self-management and social interaction, used mainly in prisons. (, “Working With Offenders; Offending Behaviour Programmes”, 7th November 2005)
Offending behaviour programmes used in a prison setting have a number of barriers to learning. For example, there is a shortage of places on courses and in training workshops resulting in long waiting lists. Movement between prisons disrupts education due to a failure to transfer educational records and significant differences between prisons in the courses offered.
There are wide disparities in education funding between prisons resulting in striking variations in curriculum. Some prisons focus mainly on target driven basic skills, others offer a wide range of educational opportunities. Overall, there are limited opportunities for distance learning. Furthermore, due to bad timetabling, forces prisoners to make trade-offs to get to classes. This involves prisoners having to choose between education or phoning their families or taking showers or exercise. Finally, low rates of pay for attending education courses compared to prison work, discouraging prisoners from learning.
(, “Inquiry into the rehabilitation of prisoners”, 7th November 2005)
This view is supported by Burnett & Roberts (2004) because those prisoners who ‘did not complete their programmes for a variety of reasons; prisoner chose to leave; prison transfers; early releases; illness or injuries; and prisoners who were asked to leave groups by staff’. Hence, by far the greatest and most important factor in the effectiveness of offending behaviour programmes is attrition – that is offenders not attending programmes or not completing programmes.
A programme known as Straight Thinking on Probation or STOP a version of Reasoning and Rehabilitation programme, included modules of problem solving, negotiation skills and management of emotions. In Mid-Glamorgan, these were delivered over thirty-five two hour sessions. A summary of the finings of the STOP evaluation is that there was some evidence of fairly short-term reductions in offending, 35% of programme completers were reconvicted in a year, compared to a predicted rate of 42%; in contrast, a custodial sentenced comparison group with the same predicted reconviction rate showed that 49% were reconvicted within a year of release. (Maguire, Morgan & Reiner. 2002. p1187). The most frequent offender criticisms were that it was boring and not helpful with current problems. The most frequently suggested improvements were that it should be: ‘more challenging; more practical; more relevant to their own problems; more supportive in dealing with their problems’. (Roberts, 2004).
In conclusion, it comes across that offending behaviour programmes will solve (myth of panacea) all our problems. However, as discussed earlier, these programmes have had received contradictory results. I believe that we should reduce the priority given to offending behaviour programmes and that they should be offered as part of a range of interventions for prisoners; fitted into a much wider rehabilitation agenda. Furthermore, there should be a more sophisticated selection process, to ensure that appropriate prisoners attend each of the particular courses, and that providers of programmes be carefully scrutinised on an on-going basis to ensure satisfactory and consistent high standards of delivery of the programmes.
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Bibliography
Burnett, R & Roberts, C. ‘What works in probation and youth justice’. Cullompton, Willan, 2004 (p.134-158 )
Maguire, Morgan & Reiner. ‘The Oxford Handbook of Criminology’ p1186-1190. Third edition. Oxford University Press. (2002)
McGuire, J & Priestley, P. ‘Offending Behaviour; Skills and Stratagems for Going Straight’. London. (1985)
Raynor, P. ‘Some observations on rehabilitation and justice’, Howard Journal, 36: 248-62
National Probation Service for England and Wales. “OASys: The New Offender Assessment System”. Issue 3 – Spring 2003
“Addressing Offending Behaviour”, (1st November 2005)
“Working With Offenders; Offending Behaviour Programmes”, (7th November 2005)
“Inquiry into the rehabilitation of prisoners”, (7th November 2005)
