Transcript Resettlement, Reintegration and Aftercare

Resettlement, Reintegration
and Aftercare
Troubles of Youth
16th March 2009
Lecture Outline
• Reasons for Growing Interest
• Factors in Resettlement
– Education / Life Skills
– Drugs Rehab
– Accommodation
• The Detention and Training Order (DTO)
• Effective Practice
• Evaluation of Resettlement and Aftercare
Programmes
Reasons for Interest
• Context: High rates of recidivism: Incarceration
growing
• Pressures to Continue Incarceration
– Prolonged Incapacitation / Lack of faith in
rehabilitation and community alternatives
• Pressures to Reduce Incarceration
– Cost
– Capacity
– Evidence of Success
• Effective resettlement programmes can help
resolve these tensions
• If custody made more effective, recidivism ↓
• If custody made more effective, use ↑
Research Evidence
• Positive Change can be produced inside,
but frequently disappears on release
• Structured transition from incarceration to
community can enhance positive change
in young offenders
– Preparation
– Links to Agencies relating to risk and
protective factors
– Secure services and support
Education, Training and Employment
• Clear evidence (already covered) that
disengagement from education is associated
with young people’s offending: does education
offer a route out?
• YJB Target of 90% of young offenders in
suitable full-time ETE by March 2006
• Reality – (2004): Only 45% of the young people
had access to F-T provision during the census
week: 28% had no provision arranged at all
–
Source: YJB (2006) Barriers to engagement in education, training and employment
Barriers to Engagement in ETE (1)
• Young People’s perspective
– Assumed personal responsibility for lack of
engagement: cited
• Low educational ability; detachment; bullying criminal record
and custody disrupting schooling
• Youth Justice Professionals
– Practical and Structural Reasons: cited
• Lack of suitable provision, continuity between custody and
community, and support and specialist; lack of willingness by
educationalists to address causes of behavioural problems
– Suggested
• Greater use of “Release on Temporary License” (RoTL)
Barriers to Engagement in ETE (2)
• Educationalists
– Saw colleges, not schools as appropriate places to deliver
educational provision: schools seen to lack knowledge, skills and
time to respond to problematic attitudes and potential behaviour
– A need to improve liaison between YOTs, Connexions, Local
Learning and Skills Councils and LEAs
– Funding rules mitigate against young people with previous low
attainment and/or poor previous participation
• Other Issues Identified
– failure to recognise the scale and nature of the problem
– lack of knowledge of the YJS within secondary and further
education
– conflicting objectives and targets
– poor transmission of key information.
Drug Misuse
• ‘The throughcare and aftercare of drug misusing
prisoners is appalling - there is no other way to describe
it’
(Drug Misuse in Prison, HM Prison Service, 1995)
• CARAT Teams (Counselling, Assessment, Referral, Advice and
Throughcare) launched in 1999
• ASSET should identify drug-related issues on arrival at
institution
• Healthcare info should be passed to YOTs and GPs prior
to transfer to community
• Non-planned release (eg. those on remand) may be
more vulnerable to drug misuse on release
• Overdose and drug-related death risks higher for those
leaving custody
Accommodation
• Housing problems
associated with
offending and custody
(before and after)
• Offending higher for
those with non-stable
accommodation
• Often exacerbated by
relationship
breakdown and
unemployment
Accommodation on
Release (Young male
offenders)
Rented /owned
11
With parents
46
With Friends
6
Probation/bail/DSS Hostel
3
No accommodation
23
Source: Niven, S. and Olangundoye, J. (2002)
Jobs and Homes-a survey of prisoners near
release. Home Office Findings 173.
Intensive Aftercare Programme
(Altschuler and Armstrong)
• Surveillance AND Treatment Services
– A need to address criminogenic factors in
communities and peer networks
– Preparation prior to release needs to address
the daily concerns of offenders after release
– Co-ordinated service provision spanning
institution and community
Evaluation of IAPs
• A need to start preparation early in the
institution
• Formal assessment procedures required:
not every offender is suitable
• Low-risk offenders:
– Supervision can produce an increase in
technical violations -> net-widening
– Reactions against intrusive disproportionate
levels of supervision
Detention and Training Order
• Introduced in 2002
• 10-17 year old serious and persistent
offenders
• Covered majority of custodial sentences
• Half sentence served in institution: half in
community, supervised by YOTs
• Reflected YJB commitment to the principle
of continuity in work in and out of secure
facilities
Did the DTO Increase Custody?
Average Monthly DTO
Sentences
2002
1,854
2003
1,657
2004
1,645
2005
1,626
2006
1,767
2007
1,820
Evaluation of the DTO
• Widespread confidence across the YJS
– Perceived to represent a new approach, that
aims to challenge and change behaviour
– Structured aspect particularly useful for young
people
– Length of sentence may be increasing:
chance for rehabilitation to happen
increased?
Custody
• YOIs found the transition
to training more difficult
that other institutions
• Co-working between
institutions and YOTs
viewed positively
• Mid-custodial transfers
disruptive
• Shorter DTOs not as
productive as hoped:
training courses
inflexible
• Lack of preparation for
community
Community
• Some problems around
accommodation
• Initial sense of
disorientation
• Length and type of
supervision lower and
variable
– 37% in education activities
– 17% in work activities
– 19% in leisure activities
• Limited inter-agency cooperation resulting in
delays to these activities
Non-Compliance & Re-offending
• 50% of trainees failed
to comply in some way
• 42% re-arrested by
end of community period
• Arrest more likely if:
Type of 1st Non-compliance
Non-attendance at supervision
76%
Re-offending
18%
Failure to live at specified address 4%
Other
2%
– Excluded from school; younger age of first caution
and first conviction; more convictions; more custodial
sentences; failure to complete previous comm.
sentence; moving address during community period;
non-involvement in education / work
Critical Consideration of
Resettlement
• Is ‘resettlement’ the appropriate term?
• Is resettlement always a good idea?
– Criminogenic influences of family, community
and peer groups