What Matters in Probation

George Mair

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134035700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The What Works initiative is having a profound impact on the work of the National Probation Service, and much has been invested in new accredited programmes - both in terms of the numbers of offenders planned to complete these programmes and their anticipated impact upon offending. Yet there has been little scholarly or professional discussion of the nature and risks of the new paradigm: it is important that it is subjected to critical debate and scrutiny. This book aims to provide a critical overview of What Works, providing a wider set of perspectives on a project which is vital for the future of the National Probation Service.

Chapter 1

Introduction: What Works and what matters

George Mair

In June 1998 Probation Circular 35/1998 with the title Effective Practice Initiative: National Implementation Plan for the Supervision of Offenders was published by the Home Office, heralding the beginning of what is now known as the What Works initiative. Essentially, the initiative involved the development and implementation on a national basis of a demonstrably ‘effective’ set of core programmes of supervision for offenders. Most of these programmes are heavily dependent upon a cognitive behavioural approach. A Joint Prison/Probation Accreditation Panel (JPPAP; now the Correctional Services Accreditation Panel) was set up in 1999 to accredit programmes for national use (see JPPAP 2000, 2001 for details of the panel’s work) and, while the panel does not rule out any ‘effective’ method, there is no doubt that its preference is for cognitive behavioural approaches.

There may be some uncertainty about the precise significance of the What Works initiative – is it simply the most important thing to hit the probation service in England and Wales in its history, or is it just another significant development thrust upon the service by a government that refuses to acknowledge the real strengths of probation – but there can be no doubt that it is a key aspect of current probation practice. Indeed, What Works is not only implicated in practice; the reorganisation of probation that took place on 1 April 2001 whereby a National Probation Service (NPS) was created is – in a sense – a result of What Works and the need to ensure that it could be rolled out consistently on a national basis. What Works, then, is having a profound impact upon the probation service – one might even go so far as to claim it as the new orthodoxy.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, the status of What Works is vague, to say the least. Is it an agenda, an initiative, a project, an idea, a model, a strategy, a vision, a movement, a set of principles? While these terms denote different things they can roughly be categorised as falling into one of two groups – either aspirational (a vision, a model, an idea) or prescriptive (an agenda, an initiative, a project). While What Works may have begun as – and should continue to be – a worthy aspiration, it has become much more a set of prescriptions that have delimited the scope and content of probation work (and in relation to this distinction it is worth noting that sometimes What Works comes with a question mark and sometimes not). Such vagueness – given the significance of What Works – is surely disturbing.

In the rush to embrace the tenets of What Works there has been surprisingly little academic or professional debate about the risks associated with it. What Works has been sold as the answer to all the problems of probation: it will prove its effectiveness as a credible sentence, it will lead to more funding, it will secure its future as a powerful organisation within the criminal justice system. The message emanating from the National Probation Directorate has been that What Works is beyond criticism; there is no alternative to it. To question What Works is seen to be casting doubt on the very foundations of probation work at a time when the service is trying to build up confidence among its stakeholders that it can be trusted. Those individuals who dare to question What Works are accused by its supporters of a ‘desire to recreate the past’ (Raynor forthcoming) or are mocked as working within a ‘professional ideology of “knowledge destruction”’ (Cullen and Gendreau 2001: 325) or relying on ‘BAD common sense’ (Gendreau et al. 2002: 362).

Despite the juggernaut nature of What Works for the NPS in England and Wales and the official discouragement to voice any scepticism about it or the way it has been developed and implemented, some voices have been raised expressing doubts – among them many of those who have contributed to this book. Others, too, have brought up issues that require a response. Kevin Gorman has argued that

There can also be little doubt that the present fashion for cognitive behavioural interventions owes much to the charisma of Canadian researchers and entrepreneurs such as Robert Ross; and to the increasing aptitude of some indigenous academics and commentators for re-packaging what may be generally unimpressive research outcomes and presenting them in a more favourable light. (2001: 6)

Simon Merrington and Steve Stanley (2000) have questioned the strength of the evidence upon which the What Works initiative is based. Mark Oldfield (2002) has set out

to contest the notion that ‘What Works’ represents some epistemological unity which can be delivered in neat packages if only the right managerial structures are put in place … I have provided examples of how the ‘principles’ of effectiveness are contestable and how their combination as guarantors of effectiveness is not an unassailable piece of received wisdom. This is not to take a ‘Nothing Works’ attitude but to raise questions about the inflexibility and precipitate nature of the transitions probation has undergone. (2002: 70–1)

And the Underdown report, Strategies for Effective Offender Supervision (Underdown 1998), which could be argued to have kick started What Works in England and Wales, has recently been subjected to questioning by the (now ex-) member of the Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate who contributed to work on the evaluation survey that formed the core of the report (Ellis and Winstone 2002).

In the NPS there may be some signs of doubt with regard to What Works and the way in which it has been implemented. The targets for completions on accredited programmes set out in the first three-year integrated strategy for the NPS (2001) have – rather quietly – been halved, which at least indicates that they were set far too ambitiously in the first place. There are also signs that the evidence base is beginning to be challenged from within the Home Office. A recent evaluation of cognitive skills programmes for adult male prisoners ‘found no difference between the two-year reconviction rates for a sample of adult male prisoners who had participated in a programme during the evaluation period of 1996 to 1998 and a matched group of offenders who had not’ (Falshaw et al. 2003: 1). It is particularly interesting that this result contradicts findings from an earlier study (Friendship et al. 2002), which underlines the instability and inconsistency of research findings.

The What Works initiative is not just a policy/practice development for probation in England and Wales. It has wider implications, too, which are worth noting briefly here.

What Works in its probation incarnation, with its reliance on cognitive behaviouralism as the keystone for work with offenders, implies a return to the medical model of deviance. And we should not forget that this model was discredited in the 1970s and has yet to be officially rehabilitated. Cognitive behaviouralism, with its emphasis that offenders are different from non-offenders and that their cognitive deficits can be treated, deals with offenders as ‘others’. Such an approach – with its echoes of exclusion – sits uncomfortably with New Labour’s commitment to social inclusion.

Rather similarly, an educative model is used in accredited programmes to remedy the cognitive deficits from which offenders suffer. Probation staff ‘teach’ offenders correct models of thinking from manuals which have to be followed with no deviations. This model, which seems to rely heavily on teaching by rote, is not calculated to appeal to offenders who – almost certainly – have not been successful at school and who may indeed have fallen out of education early. It may also lead to a lack of interest and therefore motivation – and motivation is a key factor in desistance from crime. Moreover, if an offender is sentenced for a second time to an accredited programme, what happens then – has he or she to sit through the same lessons taught in the same way? Or is the individual moved up tariff and imprisoned?

The What Works initiative discussed here is, of course, only part of a more general drive towards evidence-based policy and practice in the UK (and also in the USA) that has formed a key part of New Labour’s approach to governance. And What Works throws light on some of the limitations of the emphasis on ‘evidence’. First, and most crucially, what counts as evidence? This question has lain behind the whole nothing works/what works debate for 30 years since the publication of Robert Martinson’s notorious article ‘What works? Questions and answers about prison reform’ (1974). It now looms behind the arguments between those who adhere to cognitive behaviouralism and those who stress the need to take account of structural factors. At the moment, psychologists are dominant in designing probation programmes and – as might be expected – are sceptical about whatever sociologists and others might offer. The struggle to ‘control’ the evidence that governments might use can be seen in the work of the Campbell Collaboration which, it would appear, seeks to become solely responsible for judging the quality of research. The Campbell Crime and Justice Co-ordinating Group sees its mission as ‘to oversee the preparation, maintenance, and accessibility of systematic reviews of research on the effects of criminological and criminal justice interventions’ (Farrington and Petrosino 2001: 39; for more details of the activities of this group, see the essays in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2001). Such an approach seems to be antithetical to the (somewhat battered) ideals of academic work and to the never-failing ability of research to throw up inconsistent findings.

Secondly, there is a naïve and taken-for-granted belief – even if we could be certain about what evidence counts and what does not – that such evidence will simply be taken on board by politicians, policy-makers and practitioners (and we should not forget that evidence-based policy and evidence-based practice are not the same). On the contrary, the policy process is complex and does not proceed on purely rational grounds: policy is driven by various factors but probably most of all by politics which can scarcely be said to be a rationally grounded activity. And getting evidence to influence practice is also no simple matter. Evidence needs to be distilled from academic work into a form which can be understood by practitioners and then disseminated to these practitioners who may have various reasons for failing to take the new practice on board fully (see Davies et al. 1999; Leicester 1999; Nutley et al. 2000, for some discussion of the difficulties of getting research into policy and practice).

Outline of the book

While it is important to subject What Works to rigorous examination, there is a tendency in such debates for standpoints to become polarised, as people yield to a compulsion to assert their position in the strongest terms. This book, however, is aimed at providing a reasoned critical overview of What Works. It is hoped that by offering a searching analysis of the background and claims of What Works and its place within the NPS, a more balanced debate can take place. The chapters which make up this book have not been written by dyed-in-the-wool sceptics and opponents of progress in probation; on the contrary, the contributors are respected commentators on probation; they have extensive records in research and writing (and, in some cases, in practice) on probation matters, and would see themselves as wanting a vigorous and effective probation service.

In Chapter 2, George Mair sets out the policy background to the What Works initiative and examines the context in which it has been implemented. He argues that the foundations upon which What Works has been constructed are flimsy, and that the circumstances in which it is being implemented are not especially conducive to success. Preliminary results from research are not promising, and even those who might be called adherents of What Works make cautionary noises at times. As an example of evidence-based policy-making, the What Works initiative is not inspiring.

The next three chapters look behind What Works. In Chapter 3 David Smith examines the ways in which research has been uncritically taken up by policy-makers. Politicians, policy-makers and practitioners all too often have been encouraged to rely upon a naïve positivism and thereby accept generalisations that gloss over the unpredicability, uncertainty and general ‘messiness’ of social life. The What Works initiative has relied on this model, which, by its nature is appealing to bureaucrats. Unfortunately, as Smith argues, this kind of approach to evidence is ‘based on a misconception of the nature of the social sciences’ (this volume). There are alternative traditions to positivism and, while evidence based on these may be less easy to assimilate into policy and/or practice, it may prove to be more robust and reliable in the long run.

Kathy Kendall (Chapter 4) provides a history of the origins of cognitive behaviouralism, which has become accepted as the approach for the treatment of offenders. She points to the ways in which psychology has underpinned much of the work with offenders that went on in the twentieth century and notes how cognitive behaviouralism developed from this. Cognitive behaviouralism perfectly mirrors the political climate in which we live and, as a result of this ‘fit’, it is not surprising that it has been accepted so widely. It has brought responsibility back to the individual – which, of course, means that failure is due to the individual’s faults rather than any failings of cognitive behaviouralism.

A common complaint about the cognitive behavioural approach upon which What Works is founded is that it has been built entirely on work with white male offenders. It is assumed that cognitive behavioural programmes that have been developed on such a population will work equally well with women and members of ethnic minority groups. In Chapter 5 Margaret Shaw and Kelly Hannah-Moffat argue that gender and diversity were left out of the development of risk/need assessment tools and of cognitive skills programmes in Canada. And Canada is, of course, the main source for What Works evidence and programmes in England and Wales. Worryingly, in response to criticisms about the marginalisation of gender and diversity, the Canadian response has simply been to ‘add on’ women and race to their work – which suggests that such criticisms are still not being taken seriously.

The following four chapters examine aspects of probation work in relation to What Works. Partnership has been a significant theme in probation for more than a decade (Home Office 1990), and Judith Rumgay (Chapter 6) discusses how the partnership approach offers an alternative model to that offered by What Works; a model which, according to her analysis, is more suited to the traditons of the probation service. While partnership may have been ‘forced’ on to the probation agenda, it offers a wealth of possibilities for fruitful and exciting work with offenders – possibilities that may not be realised given the present focus on cognitive behavioural therapies. Enforcement has been a key battlefield as it has been assumed that this is the key to credibility with sentencers and, as a result of retaining offenders in supervision programmes, is a critical factor in successful completions and thus lower reconviction rates. Carol Hedderman and Mike Hough in Chapter 7 look at the evidence regarding enforcement and especially some recent studies that suggest that tougher enforcement does not lead to high retention rates. This has important implications for the What Works initiative as one of its key measures of success is the number of completions of accredited programmes. The current emphasis on enforcement creates a tension with the objective of ensuring a high rate of programme completions, and Hedderman and Hough point to other, more appropriate, approaches to compliance that might be followed by probation officers.

What Works has been all too often associated with accredited programmes for offenders with little consideration being given to the infrastructure necessary to deliver such pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preface
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Introduction: What Works and what matters
• 2 The origins of What Works in England and Wales: a house built on sand?
• 3 The uses and abuses of positivism
• 4 Dangerous thinking: a critical history of correctional cognitive behaviouralism
• 5 How cognitive skills forgot about gender and diversity
• 6 The barking dog? Partnership and effective practice
• 7 Getting tough or being effective: what matters?
• 8 Beyond programmes: organisational and cultural issues in the implementation of What Works
• 9 Supervision, motivation and social context: what matters most when probationers desist?
• 10 Community reintegration: for whom?
• 11 Community service as reintegration: exploring the potential
• 12 What Works: a view from the chiefs
• 13 Purposes matter: examining the ‘ends’ of probation
• 14 Getting personal: developments in policy and practice in Scotland
• 15 What Works and the globalisation of punishment talk
• Index