Key Outcomes

Reducing Reoffending

Community Safety and Public Protection

Promoting social inclusion to support desistance from reoffending

(NOS 2010:15)

Chosen Practice Situation

E, late 40s, white, male

Father of 2 teenage children

separated from his wife

Lack of stable accommodation

Mental health issues, severe alcohol misuse, exhibiting disturbing behaviour

Referred to the criminal justice placement team due to offending against his former partner

Main Objectives

Produce a Social enquiry report (SER) containing information on E’s background, life history and the circumstances of the offence(s). Replaced by CJSWR Jan 11.

Written to the professional standard required by the placement team for submission to the Sheriff Court.

Main Objectives

Required to interview E and other professionals involved.

Translate the information obtained from interviews into actuarial or statistical risk assessment tools used by the practice team. LSI-R and IRH to form basis of SER.

Level of Service Inventory – Revised. Scoring system provides an estimate of risk of reconviction for individual offenders and a profile of criminogenic needs.

Used to provide data about likelihood of risk of re-offending. To help inform decisions about the design and delivery of services to offenders, ie risk management.

Main Objectives cont.

Static factors – unchanging - such as age, criminal history, educational history.

Dynamic factors – susceptible to change - such as present family/marital situation, lack of constructive use of leisure time, history of abusing alcohol and homelessness.

Initial Risk of Harm - structured clinical tool used for predicting the level of harm to the public, relying mainly on professional judgement of the social worker in identifying the client’s static or historical risk factors.

Legislative Context

Section 207 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995

Requires SER’s to provide ‘such information as it can about an offender’s circumstances and it shall also take into account any information before it concerning the offender’s character and physical and mental condition’.

Main Foci

Assessing risk and protecting the public.

Thorough understanding of the application of risk, risk assessment and risk management.

A move from welfarism to a managerialist, risk led agenda and the wider social, political and economic context in which it developed is essentia.l

Main foci cont.

Incorporation of risk and probability of risk, such as the use of crime statistics to drive government policy.

‘This blending of risk and need is seen to be a reflection of a new hybridised form of risk as ‘actuarial governance’ in late modernity. Increasingly, actuarial risk or the calculation of risk probabilities derived from statistical models based on aggregate populations is extended into social work’ Webb (2006:6).

Methods

Good Communication skills, effective interviewing.

Asking ‘difficult’ questions, getting information required.

Identify needs of client.

Adapt from empathetic role, to an authoritative role.

Working in partnership with other agencies.

Models of Evaluation - RNR

Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) – Main model of evaluation.

Daily use of this model in offender management, and planning effective interventions in the placement agency.

Three main principles for effective interventions and measureable outcomes.

Models of Evaluation - RNR

‘Risk’ - in which the level of service provided is appropriate to the client’s potential risk of recidivism.

‘Needs’ - assessing the clients ‘criminogenic needs’, which are needs associated with re-offending and can be changed.

‘Responsivity’ - is to enhance the client’s capacity and motivation to change their behaviour through cognitive behavioural treatment and adapting this to their learning capacity, thus enhancing the strengths and abilities of the client.

Models of Evaluation – Preston-Shoot

Systematic evaluation.

Structured appraisal with which to analyse the objectives, research themes and methods used to reach my decision and justify my recommendation.

‘Systematic evaluation also has the capacity to produce an information base about ‘what works, for whom and in what circumstances’ (Preston- Shoot and Williams 1987: 394).

Models of Evaluation – Preston-Shoot

Series of steps to evaluate practice.

Performed after involvement finished. For dissertation.

Useful to fully evaluate practice and to analyse what worked, what didnt and what could have been done better.

What worked?

Adult Protection Case Conference – due to close multi

agency working.

Importance of adhering to the three key outcomes, understanding of risk, risk assessment and risk management – ESSENTIAL!!!

Professional override of risk assessment is permitted as long as the reasons for this are fully evidenced in the SER.

What worked?

Awareness of false negatives and false positives.

False negative – worst case scenario - client is scored as a low risk of harm and reoffending, however they commit a serious offence or suffer a serious injury.

Misdirection of resources and a lack of monitoring resulting in a catastrophic occurrence for the public and client, while the worker and the agency involved would face major repercussions.

What worked?

False positive - would not address the issues client faced.

It would be unjust to treat client as a high risk offender and divert unnecessary resources towards meeting his needs.

Without research to develop criminal justice social work we would be without an evidence base for practice.

Read widely – helps inform decisions and provides theoretical context to practice.

ReferencesCroall, H. (2006) ‘Criminal justice in post devolutionary Scotland’, Critical Social Policy, 26, 587-607.

Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kemshall, H. (2003) Understanding Risk in Criminal Justice, London: Open University Press.

Kemshall, H. (2010) ‘Risk Rationalities in Contemporary Social Work Policy and Practice’, British Journal of Social Work, 40, 1247–1262.

McNeill, F., and Whyte, B. (2007) Reducing Reoffending: Social Work and Community Justice in Scotland, Devon: Willan.

McNeill, F. (2009) Towards Effective Practice in Offender Supervision, Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.

McNeill, F., Raynor, P., and Trotter, C. (eds) (2010) Offender Supervision New Directions in theory, research and practice, Oxon: Willan.

National Outcomes and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System: Criminal Justice Social Work Reports and Court-Based Services Practice Guidance 2010. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

Preston-Shoot, M,. and Williams, J. (1987) ‘Evaluating the Effectiveness of Practice’, Practice, 4, 393-405.

Tata, C., Burns, N., Halliday, S., Hutton, N., and McNeill, F. (2008) ‘Assisting and Advising the Sentencing Decision Process’, British Journal of Criminology, 48, 835-855.

Thompson, N. (2008) ‘Focusing on Outcomes: Developing Systematic Practice’, Practice, 20:1, 5-16.

Webb, S A. (2006) Social Work in a Risk Society: Social and Political Perspectives, Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan.