Promoting offender engagement and compliance in sentence planning: Practitioner and service user perspectives in Hertfordshire

Organisational obstacles: Probation culture and role requirements

Arguably, the approach described above is not easily aligned to the paradigms currently underpinning probation practice, which remain dominated by themes of offender assessment and management, the delivery of approved interventions, and the appropriate punishment of offenders in the community (McNeill, 2006; Raynor, 2007).

In this context, staff are required to establish positive relationships with service users and inculcate a sense of ownership, while also achieving a range of targets, base practice on fixed targeting criteria, manage risks and be sensitive to the perspectives of victims.

For service users to be engaged and motivated, staff must themselves perceive a sense of ownership of their work in relation to determining the approaches used with each offender, rather than perceiving these as dictated. There is a need for more research regarding how probation staff have made sense of, and applied, changes in training and policy.

It seems likely that broader themes related to the bureaucratization of the probation service have impacted on the way in which it has identified and responded to problems related to offender engagement (Vanstone, 2010). For example, issuing practice guidance and further processes rather than creating an environment which fosters more creative, responsive and considered practice. These considerations may inhibit the full impact of the latest changes in policy regarding offender engagement if they are not given sufficient consideration.

Overall purpose of sentence planning

Sentence planning as a means to engage the service user. The majority of staff saw sentence planning as relevant for facilitating the engagement of offenders. It is likely that the explicit purpose of this piece of research, combined with the overall climate of the service impacted on the emphasis given to this. Typical responses included:

It is all about engagement; they (offenders) need to know why they are here and what the overall purpose is. (GM)

Responses of ten of the 12 officers interviewed linked, in some way, the formal sentence planning process to engagement. However, there were variations in how this was linked. Some officers more explicitly identified the planning process as an opportunity to discuss and agree aims with the service users, while others broadly identified the process as a directive means of explaining to individuals the purpose of the order and its objectives. It was similarly identified as a way of giving service users something to aim for, which was seen as a powerful motivator.

Coordination and structure. Other consistent responses were that sentence planning was a means of documenting the work required (in a similar way to a lesson plan in an educational context) giving guidance to the staff member and allowing other members of staff to pick up work in the event of a change of officer:

If I went off sick, I know that anyone can pick up my work where I left off. (ID).

Defensibility. There was a consensus that sentence planning was intrinsically linked to issues of defensibility and accountability:

So that the inspectors can see what you are doing. (FA).

More poetically:

So that your ass is covered in the event of the shit hitting the fan (WD).

Probation officers were the group most likely to express this kind of view. The sentence planning process was perceived as something that had to be followed, but was not relevant for engaging and motivating people to comply and engage with their sentences. Probation officers did attach importance to discussion with service users about the purposes of their sentence and their aims. However, goal setting was seen as something much more dynamic and ongoing than the approach required in formal sentence planning. Many staff felt that the most significant aspects of their job, which related to building relationships, encouraging reflection and encouraging positive behaviour, were not reducible to a plan which reflected a specific point in time.

OASys

OASys is expected to underpin sentence planning and practitioners are expected to complete an assessment on each offender prior to completing a sentence plan. The electronic document that probation staff use has a sentence planning section included. These documents have been a fundamental element of the experience of an offender manager’s work. For many it was difficult to envisage the job without it. One respondent went as far as saying, in response to a question ‘Is OASys helpful?’:

Helpful at what; OASys is the job? (ID)

Most staff stressed that OASys was useful as a means of identifying needs, which could then be targeted in the sentence plan. However, there seemed to be an implicit tension between this process and fully engaging the offenders in sentence planning. OASys is almost exclusively completed by the practitioner (although usually based on an interview with the service user), and objectives are subsequently produced on the basis of OASys defined needs. As one officer put it:

OASys consists of about thirty pages which the offender manager is expected to complete about the offender; and then there is one page that is done with the offender (the self assessment form), which usually identifies the same issues. (MN)

Related to this, there are broader issues relating to standardized assessment tools and their impact on creating an individualized assessment, which is fully responsive to the needs, understandings and personal narratives of the service user (Aas, 2004). More experienced staff tended to be more critical of OASys and its value in terms of sentence planning and their work with offenders more generally. For example, one officer described OASys as wholly unnecessary for identifying need in the vast majority of cases. Working with offenders collaboratively to affirm and clarify goals was seen as more meaningful and more conducive to joint ownership. Another officer suggested that it would be appropriate to have a full OASys assessment for high risk cases, but pointless for every case in view of the extremely time-consuming nature of this tool.

There was general consensus on the unhelpful nature of the OASys ‘sentence plan’.

Most stated that this document was too confusing to share with service users. A further frustration was the difficulty in modifying this plan, which made it difficult to amend according to emerging needs, new information, or changing perspectives of service users.

The OASys ‘self assessment form’ was generally regarded as a useful discussion point. However, one officer described this as being one of too many things to complete. Related themes seemed significant for many staff, who expressed the view that there were too many forms, which negated the scope for work which was genuinely service user focussed.

‘Stepping stones’

Some participants identified positive aspects of the ‘stepping stones’ toolkit. One offender manager described the tool as helpful in that it was feasible to use it with service users and it fostered ownership. The majority said that the form was confusing but that they did apply some elements of ‘stepping stones’. Some staff liked the guidance regarding how to phrase objectives, which suggests they should be in the present tense and the first person (Gast and Matille 2006). Staff also liked the emphasis placed on identifying small steps for service users to take in pursuit of broader long terms goals. Other staff were more critical:

It’s a typical one size fits all approach to try and remedy a situation, which ends up being just another form filling process (WD).

As with other comments there was an undertone that the continuous stream of new directives bordered on the ridiculous, with one comment capturing this:

I think people have been re offending because we have been using the wrong form for sentence planning and phrasing objectives in the wrong way! (HW).

Many staff stated that they thought the ‘stepping stones’ tool was patronizing to offenders. All staff identified that they felt a degree of obligation to use this toolkit, and expressed frustrations in terms of it being another form to complete. A broad theme was that the tool was prescribed as a means of engaging service users, but in reality was not seen as being particularly significant for this task.

Balancing tensions: Engaging offenders and meeting service requirements?

Staff mentioned the need to identify and record objectives which were SMART, because if they failed to do so they would receive critical comment from the inspectorate or managers. However there was a tension evident in that some of goals identified with service users, which felt most important, were not perceived as reducible to this acronym. For example those that related to building relationships, exploring issues and tentatively developing goals.

There was evidence of a tension between organisational requirements to meet risk and undertake expert professional assessments on the one hand, and being offender led on the other. Some staff felt that they, rather than the service user should be driving the sentence planning process. This was for a number of reasons. Staff perceived pressure to address issues which they felt were directly related to offending; most commonly ‘thinking skills’. Staff were anxious that their practice would not be defensible if they explored issues that were identified by the service user. As one probation service officer put it:

We are here to do what we are here to do. I think if we just let them set their own objectives, supervision would be about getting a colour TV and not about their offending behaviour (BC).

Staff addressed the tension described above in different ways. Some stated that they would identify two objectives, which would usually relate to offence focused work and victim empathy, and allow the service user to identify one. Some staff stated that they tried to find common areas and shared long terms goals through the application of motivational interviewing techniques. In this instance, a goal of owning a colour TV might indeed seem legitimate, or perhaps even a powerful motivator, if it could support pro-social behaviour and an avoidance of offending. Universally, staff recognized the importance of motivating service users to fully engage with interventions and their sentences, by identifying the potential benefits.

Being directive

Some staff members emphasized the difficulties in expecting service users to take a lead in drawing up their own objectives, when they may not have a full understanding of their difficulties, or the available interventions. (It should be acknowledged that lack of knowledge regarding interventions does not necessarily detract from an ability to engage with the setting of goals.) Equally, expecting resistant service users to demonstrate a full involvement in the setting of objectives was perceived as unrealistic. With this in mind some staff emphasized the importance of being directive. This approach may not immediately seem to reflect a service user led approach. However, individuals subject to supervision may often welcome clear guidance, although this is likely to be dependent on the perception that authority was used fairly and purposefully (Bottoms, 2001).

Using interactional skills and relationships

Most staff identified interpersonal relationship skills as the most central factor in securing compliance and engagement in sentence planning. In particular, being open, showing empathy, respect, understanding and listening were identified:

I use my personality; it’s about warmth and empathy. (CJ)

I don’t share my sentence plan with service users but they all have a clear sense of why they are here. (WD)

I feel I have to phrase the objective in a certain way to meet service requirement, but then try to communicate this differently to service users in a way that they are likely to relate to, I start broadly in a way that they feel comfortable with and I’m honest about what they have to do. (AT)

Targets

All of the officers perceived that targets impacted on their capacity to consistently deliver meaningful and engaging sentence plans of a high quality. As one officer stated:

… it is all about targets which don’t have anything to do with the actual job. (WD)

For the majority of cases, at the time of the research, officers were expected to have completed assessments and associated sentence plans within 15 days of sentence or release from prison. Service users would normally be seen on a weekly basis so this would mean three meetings between officer and service user. It is easy to recognize that these targets may not support the complex task of exploring motivations, options and obstacles, as well as establishing relationships:

Greater engagement needs a much longer period of time than three weeks…. (AT)

For this probation officer, the completion of a sentence plan within OASys, was largely to meet a target, but the notion of engagement and planning was much broader and ongoing.

One officer explained her frustration of having to undertake a number of initial assessment plans prior to going on leave, in order to meet the 15-day target. In this instance she was unable to meet many of the service users for whom she was creating plans. For high risk offenders, where there was a five-day target, and major implications of failure to meet the target, offender engagement was inevitably marginalized.

Significantly, at the time of writing, a revision to the timescales under national standards is being implemented, which it is envisaged will allow a greater degree of flexibility. Initial evaluation of the Surrey and Sussex pilot of this framework have been largely positive, with officers referring to the scope it gives to focus on key aspects of the job. However, it is important to consider that the role of national standards is, in part at least, to ensure a basic level of contact and service for all service users. Therefore, to a large extent they can be regarded as supportive of engagement. Therefore it should not be assumed that increased flexibility will promote engagement. Nevertheless further evaluation of this development will be of considerable interest (see: www.surreysussexprobation.gov.uk/news).

Frustrations regarding targets were not only about those relating to timescales, but also about content. One probation service officer expressed frustration about the pressure to refer all individuals fitting a particular set of characteristics, to particular interventions, which didn’t reflect their specific circumstances. Significant in this respect are the use of standardized and inflexible criteria, such as ORGS (Offender Group Reconviction Scale) to establish suitability for accredited programmes.

Service user motivation

Many staff identified the lack of motivation and limited capabilities of offenders as significant obstacles. Probation staff are required to work with a range of individuals at varying stages of commitment, with a diversity of problems and attitudes towards their supervision. Applying a single model of practice in relation to working with service users, and expecting the same level of engagement, is clearly not viable. Staff need to be supported in using dynamic approaches which reflect the motivations of each individual. For some service users, facilitating attendance and reflection on positive goals is an achievement in itself. Some may have very hostile attitudes toward probation and authority. For these people, simply enabling a positive, non-confrontational dialogue is significant.

For resistant service users, compliance and participation also facilitates pro-social modelling and an opportunity to challenge anti-authoritarian attitudes, and encourage reflection on the rewards of appropriate behaviour. In such circumstances, when service users are unlikely to take the lead on setting objectives, there may be a role for officer led, structured interventions, to promote a sense that attendance is purposeful. Failure to properly consider these issues risks failing to pay attention to engaging those who are most marginalized.

Service requirement to focus on particular issues

As previously indicated, staff identified tensions between engagement and other service requirements. The latter includes using OASys, having to be defensible in terms of risk and focusing on issues which they identified as being directly related to offending, which were not always identified as important by the service user:

An offender said to me that he didn’t have difficulties with thinking skills, however, I had to say to him, clearly you do, and had to address this in supervision and the plan. (BL)

It needs to involve the offender but also needs to meet service needs. (FK)

Most staff perceived a need to directly focus on offending behaviour, often using an approach underpinned by cognitive behaviour theory. When asked about this many staff stated that if they did not identify such an objective in sentence plans, they would risk being challenged if inspected. There may therefore be scope to encourage and reassure practitioners of the legitimacy of exploring issues such as family relationships and employment.

There is also a requirement to undertake victim focused work. While this may be identified as an important end in itself, this was only linked to a clear outcome in a few cases:

I always include work relating to the offence and some victim work. This is what I am expected to do. (TS)

Some described a more creative approach to addressing victim issues, by linking it in to broader issues regarding the losses sustained by offending behaviour more generally. Encouraging service users to consider the impact of their behaviour on victims is clearly important. However, there is scope for further evaluation of the impact of this type of work on reoffending. There is additionally a need to consider how to deliver this type of work in a manner responsive to the circumstances of each individual offender.

Training and skills

Most staff, and especially probation service officers, identified a deficit in the amount of training that they had received in relation to sentence planning and engaging service users. The area of training perceived to be most lacking related to the actual practice skills of interacting with, challenging, and responding to ambivalent and sometimes confrontational service users. Some staff felt that they didn’t have sufficient practice skills to address the issues identified, stating that they felt that had been given training in terms of assessing need and setting objectives, but felt unsure about how to address these difficulties. There was also a lack of confidence regarding what to do with low risk and low need cases, where there were not clear, ongoing criminogenic needs. Some identified a need for more resources to work with people, in the form of one to one programmes, and more training regarding how to deliver structured work. The ‘Skills for Effective Engagement Development’ pilot, being delivered as part of the NOMS ‘offender engagement programme’, aims to address some of the issues.

There was near universal approval attached to a motivational skills course, which draws on the work of Miller and Rollnick (2002).

Some staff drew on other training received outside of the context of their employment with the probation service. This included therapeutic approaches such as counselling and for one officer ‘life skills training’. These skills clearly gave substantial confidence in the complex process of setting objectives and approaching work with involuntary clients.

Some staff explicitly emphasized the lack of oversight of their face-to-face work with service users, and the comparative scrutiny to which their case files were subject. Both staff and service users agreed that face-to-face contact was by far the most important site where engagement and motivation could be fostered. Comparatively, the phrasing of objectives, the style in which they were written and the manner in which they were recorded was not significant. Clearly, in view of the general feeling of anxiety which was apparent, any moves to develop an approach for improving practice and supporting staff, using observations, would need to be undertaken with sensitivity.

Service user involvement in sentence planning

Only two of the 12 service users interviewed were aware of a sentence planning document having been completed, and for both of these there were no positive experiences associated with it. The others either thought there may have been a sentence plan completed, but they weren’t sure what was on it, or they had no recollection of a sentence planning document ever having been produced. Responses to the question: ‘Do you know if you have a sentence plan?’ included:

I think she wrote something down on paper, which I just signed. (EB)

That phrase means absolutely nothing to me. (JA)

When I explained what a sentence plan was the service user replied:

Probably, we might have done that. We’ve done so much it all merged into one. (JA)

A service user who could remember being given a plan said:

… something was talked about but she said I needed to talk about my offence and I said if you want me to talk about that you are taking the piss. It should be about me.(CP)

While the above could be interpreted as rather bleak, most service users had a clear sense of what the purposes of supervision were, and there was evidence that this had been discussed with their officer. For example one service user explained:

It keeps me in check with my drugs and it is doing a good job (KMA).

Another was very clear about the overall purpose:

I know what my goals are: they are to look at my drinking, look my housing, and education. I set these goals because this is what I want to do, but I’m getting the help with them now. (SA)

Another service user was very positive about the support he was receiving, while the recorded plan did not appear to have any significance:

We’ve talked about what I want to do in the next year: to come off of my medication, get myself sorted out, get myself a flat and stay out of trouble, but these weren’t written down, it’s just what we talked about. (WD)

Only one service user was familiar with the ‘stepping stones’ form, and this individual described it as ‘patronizing’. (MJ)

Fitting into service requirements?

The impact of service requirements and guidelines seemed to be clearly visible to service users, and this appeared to have a negative impact on perceptions of the probation service, the legitimacy of the interventions, and the level of engagement. These frustrations seemed to be orientated around a sense of not being treated as an individual, having to fit into service requirements, and not being treated reasonably. One service user relayed a conversation with an officer:

She said what do you need help with, and I said well if you can’t get me a house I could do with anger management. She said well you can’t have that because your scores don’t add up. (CP)

This experience seems to have given a powerful message to the service user regarding the extent to which he would be listened to and involved in his sentence, and also the extent to which the probation officer was able to give an individualized judgement.

Relational issues

As with practitioners, of most significance in terms of making probation a positive and meaningful experience, were the relational issues. Virtually all of the participants referred to the non-judgemental approach of their supervising officers as being important. One service user said the following:

My probation officer is a really nice guy…. I’ve met two other probation officers and they were nice as well, the one who I saw the first time listened to me…. She sat down and explained everything. I asked a question that she didn’t know but she went away… and came back the third week. For me that spoke volumes. (JA)

Service user voice

Many of the service users were initially reluctant to engage in this study. Nevertheless, all but one identified it as a positive experience following the interview. This could be put down to my unyielding charm combined with a packet of biscuits. However, participants emphasized the importance of having their views listened to. For some this was an exercise that made them feel valued and gave them an opportunity to express themselves freely.

The emergence of user groups with offenders to develop good practice seems intuitively sound. However, these must be perceived as sincere. Approaches to seeking service user views, which are based on rigid impersonal processes may reinforce negative experiences. Anecdotally, staff have recently relayed frustration from those that they supervise as a result of the range of surveys, which they have been asked to participate in.

Legitimacy

As mentioned above, for many of the service users, respect for their supervising officer was often the most significant motivational issue and a directive approach was often welcomed. In many instances, this was sufficient without having a clear sense of why they were being required to undertake particular tasks or interventions.

For some service users, there was a willingness to attend but limited independent motivation or insight in relation to the impact of offending behaviour. For example, there were two individuals in the sample who had been convicted of domestic assault, and sentenced to an accredited programme. These individuals expressed willingness to participate because they were required to do so, and emphasized that they would try and benefit from supervision. However, they had difficulty in making sense of this in terms of clear goals or outcomes. For this group, it is plausible that clear and agreed outcomes and objectives emerge more gradually as a result of participation in the programme and work with their supervising officers.

One service user indicated that respect was the key driver that encouraged him to attend and engage, although was not able to identify any specific benefits that he would gain from the tasks which he was required to undertake, and was not able to identify any clear objectives which he wished to address. Another identified that he was persuaded by his officer to attend a domestic violence programme, and ‘give it his best’, although was unable, at that stage, to identify clear benefits.

Where service users do not have clear insight into their behaviour or where they are resistant, legitimacy, appropriate use of authority and respect are arguably the most significant qualities for securing engagement and compliance.

Practical assistance

As captured in some of the previous quotations, many of the participants expressed the view that practical assistance to address employment and accommodation would be the most welcome form of intervention. Some were frustrated that this was not as forthcoming as it might have been, although in some cases there were unrealistic expectations.

One service user stated that he was benefiting from assistance in relation to his literacy and numeracy. Another said that while he was not sure about the benefits of probation overall, he was eager to make use of assistance in improving his employment prospects.

Structure and purpose

Two of the service users identified frustration as a result of appointments not having a clear purpose. One in particular stressed her frustration with having to balance work and travel commitments to make sure she made it to appointments, only to be signed in and told that she was doing well. She said that she would welcome a more structured approach to supervision based on clear activities.

Other service users expressed frustration as a result of insufficient practical assistance, or the lack of relevance of supervision to their own circumstances. One service user, while speaking in positive terms about the approach of his probation officer, felt he wasn’t actually that clear about what the purpose of probation was. Monitoring was perceived as central, but it was questionable for him how effective this could be on the basis of weekly appointments at the office.