The ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ of integrated offender management: implications for police culture

Abstract

One of the many forms that modern policing takes is 'integrated offender management' (IOM). This involves the police working alongside staff from other agencies, including probation and prison officers and drugs workers, all in a bid to reduce offending by prolific offenders. Some of this work involves traditional policing methods of surveillance, catch and convict (the stick). The novelty for the police lies in the emphasis on drawing offenders away from crime through 'pathway support' such as helping them into employment and supporting them into stable housing arrangements (the carrot). In theory this changes the nature of the policing task considerably. Given the emphasis in the existing literature on how 'cop culture' derives from the nature of the job police officers perform, this raises interesting questions as to whether IOM officers exhibit different cultural traits from their mainstream colleagues. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine whether the operation of IOM, as expressed through officers' talk and action, lives up to its rhetoric of a radical new approach to policing.

A systematic review into the effectiveness of Integrated Offender Management

“…This was with the exception of Annison et al (2015) who discussed the notion of IOM as a 'brand' and Lane and Kangulec (2012) who discussed the characteristics of the IOM team. Of the nine studies that evaluated the effectiveness of IOM, five used qualitative designs (Cram, 2018;Dyer and Biddle, 2016;Home Office, 2013; House of Commons Justice Committee, 2011; Wong et al, 2012), three used mixed methods designs (Evans, 2016;Senior et al, 2011;Sleath and Brown, 2019) and one used a quantitative design (Williams and Ariel, 2012). These articles investigated the effectiveness of IOM via its differing components (e.g.…”

“…Although this may be a result of sharing partner resources, which is a key principle within the IOM policy, police officers need to be able to adopt the role of an IOM offender manager as failure to do so, could impact upon the overall effectiveness of IOM. As demonstrated by Cram (2018), the acceptance of this role may be subject to the officers carrying forward their traditional police ethos, which in turn will impact upon their ability to build relations with offenders and impact upon IOM's effectiveness.…”

“…These articles (i.e. Annison et al, 2015;Cram, 2018;Evans, 2016;Lane and Kangulec, 2012;Sleath and Brown, 2019;Williams and Ariel, 2012) identified the characteristics of the workforce involved within IOM and discussed these in relation to its effectiveness. Evans' ( 2016) report was conducted during the roll-out of the TR agenda and considered the potential impact on relationships between staff and offenders, in an IOM context.…”

“…Furthermore, Cram (2018) noted that police offender managers were able to utilise the IOM scheme to obtain field intelligence on the offenders, keeping them under surveillance in ways not previously available to them. Cram suggested that the IOM way of working resulted in field intelligence officers continuing to adopt 'standard police cultural assumptions ' (p. 13).…”

Dynamic assessment of registered sexual offenders: the national practitioner perspective on the use of the ‘Active risk management System’

“…Traditionally the NPS have been the supportive agency, encouraging desistence through programmes and regular supervision, whereas the Police have been the law enforcers, investigating crime and convicting offenders through proactive detection and surveillance. Within this new era of integrated offender management (Cram 2018) and multi-agency working, there has been an expectation that these two agencies can unite to protect the public. However, as Nash (1999, p.258) states, 'Protecting the public means different things to different people' and it is the fundamental cultural differences between these two agencies which has made the use of a shared assessment tool so difficult in practice.…”