Enabling change: An assessment tool for adult offenders that operationalises risk needs responsivity and desistance principles

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which the risk needs responsivity (RNR) model and desistance principles have been integrated and operationalised in the development of the Enablers of Change assessment and sentence planning tool developed by a Community Rehabilitation Company provider in England. We consider the constructs that underpin the tool, identifying points of departure and similarity between RNR principles (Andrews and Bonta, 2007), the ‘good lives’ model (Ward and Maruna, 2007) and desistance principles (McNeil and Weaver, 2010) and their integration. We examine how these constructs have been operationalised in the tool, which aims to assess needs, strengths, protective factors and contribute to risk assessment. Given the tool’s innovation, this article is of international significance and will make an original contribution to the evidence base on operationalising desistance in the management of people with convictions in England and Wales and other jurisdictions.

The Role of Needs Assessment in the Effective Engagement of People with Convictions

“…In particular, as experienced by supervisors who had worked with the supervisees previously, the tool enabled historically problematic areas for supervisees to be discussed, and enabled them to be guided away from entrenched negative perceptions. While indicated in the findings of this secondary analysis, the findings of the primary analysis (see Horan, Wong and Szifris 2019; Wong and Horan 2019) affirm the fifth and sixth principles of quality supervision (Shapland et al . 2012).…”

“…Notably reflected in the supervisee experience, was the consideration of supervisee strengths – an integral part of the tool's content and the assessment process – enabled by the incorporation of the ‘good lives’ model and desistance principles (Maruna 2017; McNeill and Weaver 2010). This is a subject examined in detail in an earlier paper on the EOC tool by the authors (see Horan, Wong and Szifris 2019). It afforded an experienced holism that these supervisees had not experienced in previous assessments (conducted through OASys) and which was identified as being a positive feature of the support provided by voluntary sector agencies – in contrast to statutory probation services (Wong, Kinsella and Meadows 2018).…”

“…The EOC tool is arguably one of the few examples of significant innovation promised through the TR changes 2 (Horan, Wong and Szifris 2019; Wong and Horan 2019), seeking as it does to integrate the RNR model (Bonta and Andrews 2017) with the ‘good lives’ model (Ward, Yates and Willis 2012) and desistance principles (Maruna 2017; McNeill 2006). A departure from the RNR influenced Offender Assessment System (OASys), the dominant assessment tool for adults with convictions in England and Wales since 2002 (Moore 2015), the development of the EOC tool is detailed in Wong and Horan (2019).…”

“…Importantly, we readily acknowledge the necessary function of needs assessment and sentence planning –essential first steps in supervision (Canton 2014; Moore 2015). This is something to which we have recently given critical attention (see Horan, Wong and Szifris 2019; Wong and Horan 2019), where the extent to which the EOC tool integrates the risk, needs, responsivity (RNR) model (Bonta and Andrews 2017), with the ‘good lives’ model (Ward and Maruna 2007) and desistance principles (McNeill and Weaver 2010) is examined. We recognise that inappropriate integration could lead to increased risks through the dilution of evidence‐based risk management practice (Serin and Lloyd 2017).…”

PROTOCOL: Case management interventions seeking to counter radicalisation to violence: A systematic review of tools and approaches

“…Desistance‐oriented approaches focus on identifying and leveraging factors that explain why individuals desist from, or do not become engaged in, violence (Marsden, 2017). This distinction between risk‐oriented and strengths‐based approaches will make a particularly useful contribution, as it will speak directly to a long‐standing debate about the virtue of using these different approaches to tackling radicalisation and other social harms (Cherney, 2021; Horan et al, 2020; Marsden, 2017). Proponents of strengths‐based or desistance approaches argue that risk‐oriented approaches are too ‘deficit focused’ (Wong & Horan, 2021).…”