Supporting Children’s Resettlement (‘Reentry’) After Custody: Beyond the Risk Paradigm

Abstract

In response to policy concerns in England and Wales and internationally, a considerable knowledge base has identified factors statistically associated with reduced recidivism for children leaving custodial institutions. However, despite resulting guidance on how to support resettlement (‘reentry’), practice and outcomes remain disappointing. We argue that this failure reflects weaknesses in the dominant ‘risk paradigm’, which lacks a theory of change and undermines children’s agency. We conceptualise resettlement as a pro-social identity shift. A new practice model reinterprets existing risk-based messages accordingly, and crucially adds principles to guide a child’s desistance journey. However, successful implementation may require the model to inform culture change more broadly across youth justice.

‘There’s Not Going to Be a Single Solution’: The Role of Resettlement Consortia in Improving the Resettlement Outcomes of Young People Leaving Custody

“…Partnership and collaboration between services and provision are also highlighted as significant when it comes to effectively addressing the causes of offending. This chimes with the original priorities of the pilot consortia as described above (Hazel et al, 2012).…”

“…Similarly, research for the Prison Reform Trust (Jacobson et al, 2010) found that half of young people in custody came from deprived households, nearly 40% had been on the child protection register and/or had experienced abuse or neglect, and nearly half had been excluded from school. Furthermore, research (see Farrant, 2006; Gray, 2010) has shown that for many young people leaving custody, the wide range of problems that they were experiencing when they went into custody are simply exacerbated by the custodial sentence – in particular, the young person’s accommodation status (see Hazel et al, 2012).…”

“…With this in mind, it is understandable why the initial pilot resettlement consortia, and the four consortia that are the subject of this article, focussed on improving partnership working and the integration of services. Indeed, the pilot consortia clearly demonstrated that successful partnership working (at both a strategic and operational level) – particularly between the secure estate and those agencies in the community – led to: improved communication among agencies; increased sharing of aims and targets; improvements in levels of engagement in education, training and employment; increased provision of suitable accommodation; and, ultimately, reductions in reoffending (Hazel et al, 2012).…”

“…A resettlement consortium is a group of cross-sector organisations involving several local authorities (often regionally led) who work together to improve the life chances and resettlement outcomes of young people leaving custody. In 2009, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) piloted three resettlement consortia in three sites across England (for more details, see Ellis et al, 2012; Hazel et al, 2012; Wright et al, 2012). Two of these consortia – the consortium in the north west of England and the consortium in Wessex – functioned at both a strategic and operational level, while the consortium in the south west of England functioned at only a strategic level.…”

Exploring Recent Trends in Youth Justice Reconvictions: A Challenge to the Complexity Thesis

“…The fall in proven reoffending following a custodial disposal might be considered particularly surprising given that it is generally acknowledged, as noted above, that conditions in the children’s secure estate have deteriorated markedly in recent years and a range of commentaries point to a more challenging population in the secure estate (Bateman, 2016b; Green, 2019; Hazel and Lockwood, 2016; Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons for England Wales, 2018; Wood et al, 2017), with an escalation in already excessive levels of violence, self-harm, the use of restraint and isolation from peers. In the light of such evidence, any suggestion that improvements in the effectiveness of custodial provision might have contributed to lower rates of recidivism would appear to lack credibility.…”