The number of people recalled to custody in England and Wales has increased in recent years. Improving successful re‐release by engaging people in an effective recall process would achieve better outcomes for prisons, probation, and the public. Analysing in‐depth accounts of seven men, recall was experienced as painful and damaging rather than rehabilitative, lacking in credibility and legitimacy, and as a process faced alone. Progression was inhibited by hopelessness and powerlessness. Some expressed motivation for the future, but others intended to disengage from supervision. There is a need for greater procedural justice, collaboration, autonomy, hope, and trust, in the recall process and supervisory relationships.
Procedural justice (PJ) theory suggests that if incarcerated people perceive their treatment to be fair and just, greater acceptance of staff authority, less misconduct, better mental health, and improved recidivism outcomes will follow. This study developed a measure of and explored PJ perceptions for people in English and Welsh prisons. Factor analysis was used to create a 27-item PJ measure, using data from around 20,000 people who completed the Measuring quality of prison life survey during a 4-year period. The measure had good internal consistency. We found differences in perceptions across groups of people and prison types. Poorer perceptions were weakly associated with self-harm and attempted suicide. There was a negative association between perceptions and misbehavior/incidents in custody, although PJ perceptions were not a significant predictor of incidents.
Abstract. This paper describes a review of meta-analyses and systematic reviews, to explore what appears to be ineffective in reducing reoffending among people convicted of crime. The focus of this review is on secondary or tertiary crime prevention initiatives, concentrating on interventions aiming to reduce offending among adults serving sentences in custody or the community. Twenty-one reviews met the inclusion criteria, covering interventions aiming to reduce violence, domestic violence, sexual offending, drug misuse, driving under the influence, and general reoffending. Fourteen of these reviews identified interventions that have no impact on criminal recidivism, and three identified interventions that in at least one study were actively harmful by increasing the risk of recidivism of participants. Findings suggest that ineffective interventions may comprise drug testing as a stand-alone strategy, insight-oriented and behavioral interventions for sexual offending, brief interventions for alcohol misuse, and in prison in the longer-term, agonist pharmacological treatment alone for drug misuse. Those interventions that had demonstrated, in at least one of the evaluations reviewed, that they were associated with negative behaviors were court-mandated treatment for domestic violence, boot camps, incarceration-based agonist drug treatment and custodial (when compared to noncustodial) sanctions. Taken together with the findings of previous reviews in this area, the authors identify features of interventions which are likely to be ineffective in reducing reoffending. Explanations for these interventions’ likely failure to reduce reoffending draw on criminological and social psychological research and behavioral science. The authors also note that this review may not include all relevant evidence and findings should therefore be considered indicative.
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