Working with offenders
Evaluation of community service Pathfinder projects
The Home Office's National Probation Directorate set up 7 Community Service Pathfinder projects in 1999 to test specific elements of community punishment. They used different approaches to working with offenders and targeted different aspects of offending behaviour. An evaluation of these projects has been carried out by researchers from The Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge in conjunction with the Probation Studies Unit, University of Oxford and is presented here in both its long (148 page) and short (4 page) forms.
Title: What's Promising in Community Service:
Implementation of 7 Pathfinder Projects
Authors: Sue Rex Loraine Gelsthorpe, Colin
Roberts and Peter Jordan
Series: Home Office Findings 231
Number of pages: 4
Date published: January 2004
Title: Crime Reduction Programme - An
Evaluation of Community Service Pathfinder Projects
Authors: Sue Rex Loraine Gelsthorpe, Colin
Roberts and Peter Jordan, with Colleen Moore, Marie
Howes, Martina Osada, Tim Powell, Andrew Webb and Simon
Merrington
Series: Home Office Occasional Paper 87
Number of pages: 148
Date published: January 2004
Three different approaches were tested in the schemes.
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Pro-social modelling (PSM): Community service supervisors served as PSMs and used rewards to encourage pro-social expressions and actions.
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Skills accreditation (SA): Enabled offenders performing community service to acqire skills that would improve their employability.
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Tackling other offending-related needs (TON): Used community service to address problems underlying offending, e. g. poor problem-solving, a lack of employment-related skills and poor perspective-taking.
Each of the projects took a blend of these approaches, and each was successful in the view of the staff interviewed.
Key points
Until a reconviction analysis is undertaken any results given must be provisional. With this proviso in mind, the researchers have drawn the following conclusions.
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Tentative conclusions suggest that projects focussed on skills accreditation and pro-social modelling were promising, while projects focussed on using community punishment work to tackle other offending-related needs did not appear to produce positive outcomes overall.
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Effective implementation was helped by commitment, understanding and support from managers and colleagues. Team-work, staff adopting creative problem-solving and flexibility in delivery also helped.
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73% of offenders successfully completed the ordered hours. Those in more stable situations, with jobs or education, who were older, or with a lower risk of continued offending, did better in completing projects.
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For 61% of the sample who completed Crime Pics II attitude assessments, there was, on average, a significant reduction in both pro-criminal attitudes to offending and problems. Although this was not necessarily a result of the projects, 60% of offenders were also rated by staff as having undergone positive change.
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74% of offenders in the evaluation were on community punishment orders and 26% were on community punishment and rehabilitation orders. 64% were serving 100 hours or less.
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The sample was broadly representative of the national profile of offenders on community punishment – mainly male (92%), white (89%), average age 27 years and in stable accommodation. Most were in the low-medium offender group reconviction scale (OGRS) bands for risk of reoffending.
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What's promising in community service: implementation of
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Last update: 15/01/04