1. Reoffending: Evidence and Implications for Practice and Policy
Darrick Jolliffe
Head of the School of Law and Criminology
University of Greenwich

2. Outline What we know about reoffending.
Prison, the experience of prison and reoffending.
What should we be doing to reduce reoffending?

3. What We Know About Reoffending?

4. What We Know About Reoffending?

5. What We Know About Reoffending?

6. What We Know About Reoffending?
Not succeeding in public protection
Not helping those who need help to re-integrate
9.5 – 13 Billion GBP per year
People with certain characteristics are more likely to reoffend

7. Risk Assessment Tools

8. Offence Group Reconviction Score - 3
Gender
Age
Current offence type
Rate of accruing convictions
= Score out of 100

9. Example Male 36 Criminal Damage (Vandalism)
First offence at age 18 and 13 previous convictions

10. Risk Score = 45%
Two theft offences….40 days later.

11. Example Female 19 Absconding/Bail Offence
First offence at age 16 and 16 previous convictions

12. Risk Score = 74%
No offences (1.5 years later)

13. Risk Assessment Tools
How good are risk assessment devices? Which risk assessment tool is best? (Farrington, Jolliffe & Livingston, 2007; Coid et al., 2011; Singh et al., 2011) Predictive validity of these tools is very similar

14. Risk Assessment Tools
Fazel (2019) – tools not strong enough to support punitive measures. They could be used for positive things. Strongest predictors of reoffending are not causal Risk assessment tools tell us who, but not how

15. Prison Increases Reoffending
Jolliffe & Hedderman (2015)
1162 males sent to prison
1162 males put on community order
Significant increase in reoffending
Hedderman & Jolliffe (2016)
320 females to prison
320 females put on community order
Cost an extra £3.8 million GBP

17. So What Can We Do To Reduce Reoffending?
Use prison less often
Provide ‘evidence-based’ interventions to those who most need it
Jolliffe & Farrington, Review of interventions for violent offenders
11 evaluations
Overall they reduced reoffending by about 11%
Studies that included cognitive skills training and role-play showed greater reductions

18. Stop Now and Plan (SNAP)
Leena Augimeri
12-week cognitive-behavioural intervention including self-control and problem-solving techniques
structured curriculum, facilitated discussion, role-play
participants learn to problem-solve in provoking situations
Weekly 90 minute sessions
Also, one-to-one family counselling.
For every 1$ spent on the programme between 3 – 6$ was saved.

19. Lipsey (2009)
An analyses of over 500 interventions that had been used for younger offenders
Working with higher risk individuals
An intervention that was therapeutic (not deterrent)
Interventions that had high ‘fidelity’

20. Evaluation is Important
Highest quality evaluations might not be possible.
However, collection of fairly basic information will help to build ‘evidence’.
Who are you working with?
What work have you done with this person?
What happened after?

21. Conclusions Reoffending is far too high
We have tools to help us identify who to work with
Prison is not one of these
Interventions to reduce reoffending should be ‘evidence-based’ or be ‘evidence-collecting’

22. Professor Dr Darrick Jolliffe Head of the School of Law and Criminology University of Greenwich