Making desistance real: Implementing a desistance focused approach in a community rehabilitation company (CRC)

Abstract

Desistance is now a key focus for probation practice in the United Kingdom. However, how to implement desistance in the workplace has remained challenging, particularly in the absence of practice guidance. This article presents the experience of ‘making desistance real’ in the context of Community Rehabilitation Companies. ‘Identity shift’ is presented as a core component of the desistance approach adopted, and practice designed to support services users to transition to a pro-social identity and their ‘best life’ is presented. The article examines changes in assessment processes and tools, outlines desistance informed interventions, and the engagement of practitioners in delivering desistance.

Keywords

desistance identity-shift implementation practice

Desistance as a critical focus of probation work has gained considerable momentum in recent times (Healy, 2012; King, 2014; Weaver, 2019), with the resurgence of interest owing much to the influential work of Maruna (1997, 2001) and a refocusing of attention on the process of desistance primarily, although not exclusively, in America, Canada, Australia and the UK (e.g. McNeill, 2004a, 2004b; Maruna and Farrall, 2004; Weaver, 2015). The 20 years since the publication of ‘Making Good’ has seen extensive work to establish a desistance paradigm, including arguments to establish a paradigm shift for probation away from correctionalism and punishment to desistance (McNeill, 2006). While the extent of this distinctiveness and the paradigm shift are debatable, desistance has acquired the status of the new probation trend (Maruna and Mann, 2019).

This article is based on the experience of one Community Rehabilitation Company (London CRC) and its parent company MTC. It is written by qualified probation officer employees with over 50 combined years of experience (Burroughs, Mayes and Thorogood), and an academic consultant to the CRC (Kemshall). MTC is a UK subsidiary of Management and Training Corporation, a US-based service provider specialising in Job Corps centres and correctional facilities, which has been providing probation and custodial services across England since 2015. Serving more than 35,000 service users at any one time, MTC seeks to transform lives, build safer communities and break the cycle of reoffending. Under the Government’s re-nationalisation of probation services, MTC’s Community Rehabilitation Company subsidiaries will cease to deliver probation services from 26th June 2021.

Academic work in the UK at the turn of the century was largely theoretical and exploratory (e.g. Bottoms et al., 2004; Farrall, 2002; McNeill, 2004a, 2004b), with subsequent work drawing on an increasingly multi-disciplinary approach to formulate key explanations of the process of desistance (Bottoms, 2014; Bottoms and Shapland, 2016; Bushway et al., 2001; Weaver, 2015; and Weaver, 2019 for a full review of theoretical approaches). As research attention has grown so has policy and practice interest (Healy, 2010, 2012, 2013; King, 2013, 2014; McNeill and Weaver, 2010; Maruna, 2010), including within the National Offender Management Service (see for example HMPPS Guide to Desistance, 2019), accompanied by a stronger international emphasis on empirical evaluations to establish what works in desistance (Bottoms and Shapland, 2016; Carlsson, 2012; Hart and Van Ginneken, 2017; Rocque, 2017; Savolainen, 2009; Vesey et al., 2013; Weaver, 2013). By the time of Breaking the Cycle, (MoJ, 2010), and Transforming Rehabilitation (MoJ, 2013); followed by the subsequent creation of the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs); the quest was on in England and Wales for practical implementations of desistance in the workplace. To this end, CRCs bidding for probation work were encouraged to consider innovatory assessment and management approaches with service users that reflected a desistance focus (NOMS, 2012, 2013).

Assisted desistance has been described as the ‘actions organisations and practitioners need to do to help individuals walk away from crime’ (Maruna, 2010: 1). In brief, these can be understood as practitioner behaviours and conduct epitomised by positive relationships with service users combining fairness and encouragement; optimistic messages focused on tangible achievements; mirroring, modelling and praising positive service user behaviours; practical assistance on employment, accommodation and finances; work with pro-social significant others to sustain change; and promoting social integration and participation in pro-social networks (see: Bottoms and Shapland, 2010, 2016; Farrall et al., 2014; Maruna, 2010).

However, translating desistance into practice has been challenging, not least due to definitional problems, disputes about the quality of the underpinning evidence base, and lack of practical guidance to practitioners about what they should actually do to assist desistance (Maruna and Mann, 2019; Moffat, 2014). This article presents MTC’s experience of ‘making desistance real’ in Thames Valley and London CRCs. The article explores the following key areas:

Assessment

Promoting identity shift as a critical part of the desistance process

Developing and implementing interventions to support desistance

Reconciling risk and desistance

Communicating with employees and employee training

Evaluation and next steps.

Assessment – The development of Omnia

In 2017/8, in the pursuit of long-term change and public protection, MTC embarked on a journey to discover and harness empirical evidence of effective practice. This was set against the background of limited CRC resources to manage risk and a strong desire to drive sustained change. Accordingly, MTC drew on research into desistance, primarily the work of Maruna (2001, 2010; Maruna and Mann, 2019); McNeill, (2006; McNeill and Weaver, 2010), Weaver (2013, 2015, 2019), Nugent and Schinkel (2016) and Hazel (2017; Hazel et al., 2020) on youth justice. The principle of ‘Identity Shift’ emerged as a central focus for practice (Hazel, 2017). In practical terms, by focusing on facilitating the individual service user’s own understanding of their identity and supporting a shift to their ‘best life’, we could use external controls collaboratively and intelligently to balance management of risk to the public in the short term, and simultaneously promote desistance and internal shift to self-management in the longer term. Where appropriate, discussions around increasing or decreasing reporting frequency, or adding/removing licence conditions is based on a collaborative agreement with the service user. The latter are accepted as experts on their own change and their own risk, and this process avoids default decision making by workers. Utilising work on ‘good identities’, self-efficacy, and intentional self-change from Paternoster et al. (2016; Bushway and Paternoster, 2013), MTC have placed shifting offending identities to pro-social, good identities as a central aspect of work with service users. Identity, including how service users perceive their own identity and place within the world is seen as critical to understanding both routes into crime, but more importantly, routes out and what practitioners need to do to aid desistance (King, 2013, 2014; Veysey et al., 2013; Weaver, 2015).

Our initial priority was to develop a supportive technology framework which embedded the identity shift approach from assessment stage. We were assisted in this by Beaumont Colson Ltd (BCL). Following a review of traditional assessment systems MTC responded to CRC practitioners’ call for a more intuitive and dynamic IT system that could provide meaningful analysis of offending behaviour, conditions and circumstances; proactive review of change and progress; and also engage service users in collaborative work throughout the sentence. This tool is called Omnia ¹ and it integrates dynamic risk assessment, sentence planning and daily case management reporting; with a key focus on holistic case management blending desistance and risk management. The tool is dynamic with regular updates made by practitioners.

Developed with and for practitioners, the unique Omnia interface promotes traditional actuarial Ministry of Justice (MoJ) assessment tools such as OASYS, SARA v3 etc, coupled with desistance informed practice. This includes a greater focus on positive and protective factors, and robust sentence planning with a clear link and differentiation between risks, needs and objectives. Omnia’s risk and needs structure has captured the familiarity of OASys/nDelius, with the added improvement of quick overall visibility and live risk rating. Its unique functions include the HCAP entry, that is a data collection and analytical structure focusing on: History, Current, Analysis, and Protective factors. This provides a clear framework for the assessor’s own reflective practice by asking them to consider what something actually means for the individual in a specifically criminogenic area and if it impacts on risk or need, and consequently on the sentence plan. This analytical focus enables the assessor to think about what the information actually means and how it impacts on the individual. This helps practitioners to integrate risk and desistance (discussed in more detail below). The assessment concludes with Omnia providing an overall assessment score, informed by clinical and actuarial assessment. This contributes towards a meaningful Action Plan with small, manageable steps built in, utilising research on approach goals (Fortune, 2018), and service user engagement (Bottoms and Shapland, 2010; Rex and Hosking, 2016; UK Government, 2019). The assessments are individualised contributing towards more personalised interventions and increasing service user ownership of case management plans.

For service users Omnia aids engagement and self-agency as they are asked to collaboratively score each criminogenic section themselves so they can see which areas require change and service users can monitor progress in subsequent self-assessments. In this way, service users are encouraged in their identity shift from someone who is passive in the journey of change, to the driving force behind it (Healey, 2013; King, 2014; Weaver, 2013). The HCAP case entry (Historic, Current, Analysis and Protective Factors) is designed in this linear fashion to encourage practitioners and service users to have a constructive dialogue providing information on offending behaviour, and the extent and type of human and social capital available to the service user. This collaborative and analytical approach enables service users to gain early insight and understanding of their existing supportive networks and personal strengths before beginning the desistance journey. It can also trigger service users into the process of sourcing more pro-social pursuits and non-offending networks where necessary. Additional interventions during the sentence plan aid this reflective approach on the part of service users. For example, the use of ‘Pause and Reflect cards’ which pose questions to service users such as: ‘Who would you call in a crisis?’ This approach promotes self-efficacy and self-identification of key issues for further intervention, reflecting current research into the role of self-efficacy and agency as key mechanism of desistance (LeBel et al., 2008; Weaver, 2015).

Omnia was developed collaboratively with employees through input to the design, testing and implementation feedback. The Omnia tool has been critical in embedding the idea of Identity Shift into the practice of the CRC. Employees are largely positive about Omnia, with favourable experience of the dashboard, identification of criminogenic needs, and speedier completion of risk assessments (Rico, 2020: 16). Regular updating means that flexible and speedier responses can be made to changes in circumstances, risks and the desistance journey. However, as with any large technical organisational change, the Omnia project presented significant challenges in logistics, training and resourcing; and MTC took an incremental and evolutionary approach to change and improvement, adopting the notion of ‘emergent change’ from Burnes (2009). As practitioners had been central to the development of the tool, along with software developers previously involved in authority system development, MTC’s pre-emptive work and upfront consideration of cultural and operational impact meant the transition to Omnia was relatively smooth with little detrimental impact. Initial practitioner training took approximately four days for individuals to complete alongside their teams, plus supportive surgeries and ongoing wraparound support. With managers and quality assurance teams being trained first, there were opportunities to further enhance the training in the midst of roll out. However, it also marked the commitment of MTC to innovation and best practice. The four training days provided an opportunity for team reflection and a refocus on case assessment and recording technology as a tool for our work with service users rather than the completion of this being the primary focus of the interaction itself.

Promoting identity shift as a critical part of the desistance process

Drawing on psychological literature and social identity work (see: Veysey et al., 2009) shifting an offending, negative identity to a pro-social, non-offending one is seen as intrinsic to all our work (Hazel, 2017; Hazel et al., 2020; Paternoster and Bushway, 2009). Self-efficacy and agency have been seen as central to the development of a ‘coherent, pro-social identity’ (Maruna, 2001: 7; 2012), and our current practice aims to provide strong, committed relationships with service users emphasising optimistic messages, praise, reflecting back, and encouragement to visualise and achieve a non-offending future self. Wherever possible service users are enabled to pursue pro-social activities, including opportunities to ‘give back’ and to gain self-worth. Practitioners are encouraged to see every contact as an opportunity for change, utilising a range of ‘hooks for change’ – the creation and offering of opportunities to service users while also enabling service users to develop the skills, competence and capacity to take such opportunities (Giordano et al., 2002).

Our key steps to promote and support identity shift can be broadly summarised as:

Engage: Effectively engaging with the service user as a whole; not as we or others see them, but crucially, how they perceive themselves and the world around them.

Assess: This is an ongoing process; encouraging a service user to reflect on their current identity, their willingness to engage and fully understand reluctance to change.

Identify: Identify hooks to change for the individual, what motivates the person-find and uncover internal/external resources to help routes to new identity.

Reframe: Assist the service user to identify the person they want to be.

Expect: Relapse and dissonance; risk management should provide flexible responses to manage risk in the short and medium term.

Connect: with social capital- employ bridging and recovery capital to enable services users to develop and sustain new models of behaviour and pro-social identities.

Reinforce: Mirror back and reinforce; do not undermine the process.

Crucially, interventions have to enable, support and enhance identity shift, but also function to link service users to new opportunities, networks and communities. Transitions and shifts have not only to be made, but they have also to be consolidated and sustained. The next section presents some of our current and developing interventions.

Desistance informed interventions

Sustained desistance from offending involves a personal journey for our service users and young people (Hazel, 2017; Kazemian, 2007). The main focus of practice is enabling service users to change how they see themselves in the world, and, in turn, their behaviour from a pro criminal to a pro social identity. Targeting this shift is how we aim to reduce reoffending long term, and this underpins our current intervention development. Interventions are driven by individualised assessment and are personalised to the service user as opposed to one size fits all. Our services and interventions focus on learning and development, and refinement of skills to empower service users to do things differently. This includes acting and behaving differently in the various situations they encounter in ways that are more positive for them and those around them. These skills include practical, problems solving skills; emotional regulation and self-management; and interpersonal skills – all supported by research as effective mechanisms for promoting desistance (see: Healey, 2014; King, 2014; McCartan and Kemshall, 2020). This approach has the dual function of enabling service users to manage situations, particularly of adversity and challenge without offending, and promotes resilience (Fougere and Daffern, 2011; Fougere et al., 2012; Gomm, 2015; Hodgkinson et al., 2020; Skeem and Manchak, 2008). Change and the transformation to a pro-social identity and life-style is seen as continuous and often unpredictable, requiring a constant process of realignment to changing circumstances, roles and environments (Burnes, 2009). The ‘pull back’ to negative networks, negative habituated behaviours, and the triggers for negative responses are recognised as challenging and difficult to step away from. Facilitating resilience is seen as critical to success over the long-term and includes the promotion of hope and empowerment (Fougere and Daffern, 2011; Martin and Stermac, 2010; see also Changing Lanes a guide written by young ex-offenders).

In practice, practitioners and service users engage in a strength-based collaborative assessment (Burnett and McNeill, 2005); exploring acute and static dynamic risks, criminogenic needs, positive and protective factors encompassed by the service user’s identity, motivation, capacity, resources available to them (human and social capital) and willingness to shift to a more pro-social identity. This drives an action plan with realistic goals using a step-based approach to change. This process enables both practitioners and service users to focus on the distance travelled rather than large unobtainable goals (Porporino, 2010). Overall, we do all we can to empower the service user to live a more ‘legitimate life’. A significant part of this is the facilitation of community connections and networks to continue to practice new skills and allow new roles to be reinforced through reciprocity, a sense of belonging, and shared values (Farrall, 2004; Farrall and Maruna, 2004; Farrall et al., 2014; Weaver, 2015). A wide range of community partners are used, and collaborative safety planning with the service user is used to ensure that community activities are safely carried out. This both reduces risk, but also enhances bonding to pro-social community networks (McCartan and Kemshall, 2020).

For our London community payback service users, self-reflection is encouraged through the use of ‘Pause and Reflect cards’. These encourage service users to reflect on their human and social capital, their personal strengths and skills, and enable them to develop personal goals for the future. The cards are questions framed to illicit a strengths-based conversation aligned with specific moments in someone shifting their identity e.g. understanding their current identity, creating dissonance, thinking about motivations to change and reflecting on their future identity. A deck includes 48 colour coded cards, and four ‘explainer cards’, use on work projects prompts the group to think about themselves, where they want to be, what they want for their future and how to get there. The use of the cards supports reflection and introspection and also increases service user engagement. These techniques make service users feel that they are shaping their own change and can see a purpose to every attendance.

An example of our commitment to identity shift is the development of our short programme Fostering Identity, Resilience and Strengths, designed for men who have problems related to identity, self-esteem or with resilience. It aims to equip service users with the skills, strengths and resources to better manage problematic areas, situations and conversations in their lives. It does this through the use of self-affirmation, building emotional literacy and intelligence, forming healthier thinking patterns and developing a stronger understanding of personal values and beliefs that support healthier choices. Crucially, restrictions and sanctions will only work while in place in the short term, so it is important to address personal agency and self-awareness in order to support a shift in internal narrative to a pro social identity (Hazel, 2017; Weaver, 2015). One example of service user feedback illustrates this, with a user commenting at end of programme: ‘the more you think positive the more you attract to your life’.

In the broader context of interventions and change, the ‘pains of desistance’ can be considerable (Nugent and Schinkel, 2016), and practitioners have a key role in assisting service users to navigate and overcome them. These ‘pains’ are primarily social isolation (or the fear of it), failure to achieve or sustain key pro-social goals, (or fear of failure), lack of acceptance of a new pro-social identity by others, and lack of community acceptance over the longer-term. Alongside the promotion of resilience, practitioners can mitigate these pains by focusing on practical assistance to ensure successful community re-entry, but also by promoting access to employment, to positive groups of support, and mentoring (Graham, 2016; Healey, 2014; King, 2014; McCartan and Kemshall, 2020; Savolainen, 2009; Skardhamar and Savolainen, 2014). Examples include the use of a specialist education, training and employment team (ETE), mentoring, volunteering access to online training courses, business enterprise programmes, securing start-up funds for new business, obtaining new skills and qualifications relevant to employment, and importantly accessing new networks and opportunities alongside skill development.

In addition, practitioners have a key role in mirroring back successful identity transformation to service users, and can use praise and ‘reflection back’ to reinforce progress, goal gains and identity building (Bottoms and Shapland, 2010). For example, presenting users with a book of their journey to desistance at end of sentence, and reflecting back achievements and progress within interviews. This enables a sharper practice focus on ‘act-desistance’, that is achieving non-offending as the first step in interventions; ‘identity-desistance’ as the transition and internalisation of a non-offending identity as a mid-term aim; and finally ‘relational-desistance’ that is, longer term social acceptance, sense of belonging, and identity validation (Best et al., 2018; Nugent and Schinkel, 2016: 570). However, limits on what practitioners and service users can achieve within very real structural constraints have to be recognised. As Nugent and Schinkel put it: ‘desistance for some is not just a “process” but rather more like an endurance test with little to no reward for their efforts’ (p. 580). In such circumstances, practitioners should not underestimate the importance of personal support, praise, and simply walking alongside the service user during this difficult journey.

Reconciling risk and desistance

One of the adverse consequences of the division of probation services in 2014 was the common misperception that alongside attendant resources for control (i.e., MAPPA, Approved Premises) the management of risk now resided solely within the NPS. This has resulted in a largely bifurcated approach to risk and desistance with risk management and controlling interventions located largely with the National Probation Service (NPS) (Mythen et al., 2012); and strengths-based, desistance focused approach located with the CRCs. In practice this bifurcation is somewhat permeable (Kemshall, 2019). This misperception of a ‘twin-track’ approach to cases has persisted to the present day, arguably fuelling the perception that risk practice and desistance practice are distinct paradigms while in practice the boundaries are often less distinct (Kemshall, 2008, 2010, 2019; Mythen et al., 2012; Weaver, 2015). We adopted a hybrid approach combining desistance and risk, integrating practice to manage risk with practice to enhance desistance and reintegrate service users safely into the community (see: Kemshall, 2008, 2010). Overall, our intervention strategies seek to achieve desistance, rehabilitation, behaviour change, promotion of self-management, and safely re-link service users to their communities. This notion of protective re-integration (Kemshall, 2008: 127) takes place within a safety culture, within which reintegration and the pursuit of activities and network connections to enhance desistance are delivered via collaborative safety plans made with the service user. The over-riding questions is always ‘how can we do this safely’? (Wood and Kemshall, 2007). Interventions are predominantly concerned with ‘healing the harm’ rather than ‘punishing the harm’ (Kemshall, 2008: 127; Petrunik, 2002). The focus is on a balanced approach to the ‘pursuit of control and the promotion of change’ (Weaver and Barry, 2014: 153; Weaver and Weaver, 2016). For example, practitioners have positively used breach proceedings to manage risk and appropriately signal licence boundaries, but also then sought to provide appropriate rehabilitative and risk management interventions such as high intensity Drug Rehabilitation Requirements to provide a route out of addiction and offending. By providing continued support throughout ‘rehab’, and strongly signalling to the service user a commitment and expectation of change, the practitioner successfully supported a transition to a non-user and non-offending lifestyle and identity. The breach process itself became the ‘hook for change’, and a mechanism for longer-term change.

Communicating with employees and training

Establishing a strong collective focus on identity shift throughout the entire organisation is central to success (Hazel, 2017; Hazel et al., 2020). As an organisation we removed the label of ‘offender’ in 2014, and describe our frontline employees as practitioners to minimise authoritarian language. Early on, we noted that everyone in the organisation, from our service centre employees to frontline practitioners needed to understand:

Why people stop offending, and the importance of identity in this journey.

That every employee has an individual role to play, either directly or indirectly, to support identity shift for our service users.

All new employees joining MTC and its business units received an introduction to identity shift and the corresponding research which supports this approach. Continuous professional development (CPD) is also used to convey the core message and key research, for example through a lecture series available to all employees irrespective of role, online briefings to employees at all levels but tailored to individual role, and a process for employee feedback focused on what the whole organisation can do to support service user transition to desistance. This is supported by a report back mechanism promoting ‘good news’ stories focusing on the key components of success. Frontline manager and practitioner training has centred on the importance of collaboration, empowerment and bearing witness to the service user journey. Central to practice is the facilitation of service user understanding of their own personal narrative and place in the world, this is seen as critical to eventual success. Coupled with this is the promotion of human and social capital to enable service users to navigate out of crime and manage their own risk reduction (McCartan and Kemshall, 2020).

We also encourage reflection in our own employee group, in order to better understand that who we are and how we fit in the world around us is not necessarily fixed and our identity is not based solely on past events in our lives. Internal publications and CPD offerings promoted this along with effective engagement skills which are central to the process of identity shift in service users (Bottoms and Shapland, 2010). We asserted at the outset that when working with our service users ‘Every Contact Matters’ and it is the responsibility of all employees to promote positive change, or at the very least to not undermine this, with a badly placed remark or by creating an unnecessary negative experience for service users as they engage with change.

Evaluation and next steps

The ongoing evaluation of the identify shift approach has been challenging, given the challenge of collecting data on the (often, non-linear) desistance journey and positive impacts on reoffending rates (Farrall, 2002; Farrall et al., 2014). We are developing a number of measures to triangulate positive change from a range of different perspectives, such as service user self-report, changes in pre/post assessment scores, good news stories, employee feedback surveys and case quality audits. However, we recognise that there is still progress to be made in evaluating the approach.

In a 2018 report by HMIP into the quality and impact of probation work by London CRC, the organisational shift to quality of interventions and outcomes for service users was slowly becoming apparent although not yet fully embedded. However, the inspection made six recommendations (HMIP, 2018: 9) and two of the most compelling indicated a need to effectively assess risk of harm and commit to a plan of action for public protection, in addition to improvement of employee training and support. Both of these areas were directly impacted by the identity shift culture in action, from the inception of Omnia to identity shift principles being heavily woven into all levels of employee learning and development. The Thames Valley, HMIP (2020) similarly referenced the emphasis on learning and professional development, and highlighted the use of staff conferences, lectures, online learning platforms, webinars and seminars (HMIP, 2020: 22). In its review of London CRC, HMIP (2019) specifically referenced ‘dedication to innovation’ (p. 4) and noted our ‘staff are empowered to deliver personalised services that will bring about lasting change in the lives of vulnerable people’ (p. 5). HMIP remarked on the clarity of action plans for service users and how this led to improved engagement to ‘support their desistance (identity shift)’ (p. 23). However, a key recommendation was to ensure a consistent balance of desistance approaches and risk management in order to effectively protect the public and safeguard victims (p. 24). Actions have since been taken to further reconcile risk and desistance, and this has been a central feature of our identity shift approach. This includes ongoing work with employees to ensure it is developed and implemented consistently across the organisation. While overall rated as ‘requires improvement’, HMIP (2019) noted that 83% of London service users were recorded as having successfully completed their community orders or suspended sentence orders; 5% over the performance figure for all England and Wales against a target of 75% (MOJ, 2018). A series of recommendations have been made which are outlined in our action plan and including ongoing audits of practice, developing supervision frameworks and further embedding Omnia (HMPPS 2019 Thames Valley Action Plan).

MTC have conducted an internal report into the use of the Omnia tool based on surveys and employee focus groups and the findings were positive across both London and Thames Valley CRCs (Rico, 2020). Satisfaction rates across London varied between 65–70% for visual changes, 60–65% for case management and 50–60% for service user engagement. It is to be noted that the tool was trialled in Thames Valley CRC originally and that London estates do present their own challenges in terms of capacity for in-room technology and reliable connectivity. It is notable that less time is spent on duplicating information, with more time spent on analysis and having time with the service user. Practitioners have commented:

I develop the assessment in more depth; in terms of reoffending, behaviour patterns, ROSH, I love it.

I have learnt so much in these sessions. Such a shame it has come to a [sic] end…………BRITE TOOL!

I truly enjoyed the course, I also felt like I learned a lot

Thoroughly enjoyed the course, it’s made a massive impact to my life and I feel more confident as a person. The tools and skills I have learnt will make a massive impact to my future.

Progress on a desistance focused approach is also supported by anecdotal evidence in relation to how our frontline employees have made real changes in the lives of our service users, bearing witness to powerful self-change and acceptance in their local communities and families.² These provide ongoing qualitative data on the impact of an identity shift approach. One example, is that all of our London community payback supervisors have been trained in this approach given that they have a unique opportunity to support a shift to a pro social identity during contact with service users in the context of a work project during which practical skills are also addressed. The next phase of our evaluation is to extend our own evidential base and create an evaluation framework that combines qualitative feedback from service users and practitioners; case studies of success; evaluation of specific techniques and interventions used in the supervision of service users such as our ‘Pause and Reflect’ cards, and quantitative data on reoffending rates.

Conclusion

The implementation of a desistance approach has been challenging, requiring work across numerous fronts including development of key assessment tools, new interventions, practice development on identity shift, and communicating new expectations to employees and service users. We are seeking to carry desistance beyond theory and to give it practice reality. The overall aim of all our activity is to enable the service user to become the agent of their own change. Our post pandemic recovery programme includes the launch of a fund aimed at awarding voluntary sector organisations grants to develop services in the areas of education, training, employment, accommodation, and improving social cohesion and integration for adults who have committed crimes. This recognises that many such services and resources will be challenged by post pandemic austerity, and reflects an ongoing commitment to both aid desistance and remove the ‘pains of desistance’. Despite the challenges of making desistance real MTC believe the academic evidence supporting the desistance approach makes the effort worthwhile, and can contribute to journeys out of offending and to long-term public protection. Early indications are that a strong commitment to a pro-social identity approach can work, supported by an awareness of barriers to success, and a range of tools that enable practitioners to balance risk management and desistance focused interventions in a safe and flexible way.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all of the dedicated employees at MTC and London/Thames Valley CRCs who have embraced this project, with special thanks to Linda Neimantas, Jo Mitchell, Tom Yates and Lucien Spencer. The authors would also like to thank all of the academics who worked with them on this project and on the MTC lecture series (in particular Neal Hazel, University of Salford).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The lead author is an academic consultant to MTC. The three other authors are employees of MTC.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hazel Kemshall

Notes

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