Strengths,resources or controls? The assessment of protective factors in probation practice

Abstract

This article is based on research that explored how well protective factors are understood, assessed and used in risk assessment within probation practice. The research was facilitated by the Sir Graham Smith Award, administered by the Probation Institute. Semi-structured interviews explored the knowledge, ability, confidence and attitudes of a sample of probation officers working in the National Probation Service. The findings suggest that understanding of the term is varied, and there are some limitations around knowledge, but that attitudes towards protective factors are positive and there is some good practice in terms of assessment.

Keywords

protective factors risk assessment desistance risk of serious harm risk management recidivism

Introduction

Traditionally, risk assessment has taken a predominantly deficits-based approach whereby practitioners rely on statistical and/or dynamic risk assessment tools that assess empirically-derived risk factors to arrive at an overall risk classification or judgement (De Vries Robbé and Willis, 2017). However, offenders also have strengths and resources that they can use to overcome obstacles to desistance (McNeill et al., 2012), and recently the focus has broadened to encompass factors whose presence may decrease the likelihood of recidivism, that is, protective factors (Yesberg et al., 2015). In the broadest sense, a factor that may be deemed protective is one whose presence decreases risk for further offending (Thornton et al., 2017). Protective factors help to explain why some offenders desist from offending despite the presence of multiple risk factors (Yesberg et al., 2015). Whilst the exact added value of assessing protective factors during risk assessment is still uncertain (Cording and Beggs Christofferson, 2017), it is now widely argued that a focus not only on offenders’ risk-related deficits but also on their strengths or resources leads to more accurate risk prediction (Yesberg et al., 2015) and enables practitioners to support desistance.

As a relatively new area of academic enquiry, the concept of protective factors is not without its problems. Not least, there is not one, clear, accepted definition of what the term ‘protective factors’ means. Furthermore, when alternative definitions of protective factors are considered it is clear that they can relate to quite distinct things, be used in a range of ways in assessment and have various implications in terms of risk management and rehabilitation. For example, Durrant describes a protective factor as ‘a mirror image of a risk factor…a factor that moderates the impact or influence of risk factors’ (2017: 5), whilst Nee and Vernham contend that protective factors are ‘qualities or traits that are inherently positive within the individual and are not just factors that mitigate risk’ (2017: 38). The main reason for the lack of clarity around definition is that the evidence base for protective factors is not nearly as extensive as that for risk factors and there is no clear understanding of why protective factors protect (Durrant, 2017).

It is important to recognise that this is the context in which probation practitioners are completing risk assessments and which may well have a bearing on how they are considering and assessing protective factors. Indeed, as Fortune and Ward (2017) outline, these issues in turn have implications for practitioners trying to assess protective factors and use them in risk management. They state that the way protective factors are defined and classified means practitioners can become confused about their appropriate use. Further, practitioners are often unaware that the concept of protective factors has distinct meanings, and therefore different functions. Finally, and perhaps most challenging, in different contexts factors can potentially be regarded as both risk factors and protective factors (Fortune and Ward, 2017). To emphasise the point about context, it is telling that a search of the term ‘protective factors’ in the Probation Journal shows it occurs just 36 times within articles whilst the term ‘risk factors’ occurs 836 times. This is somewhat crude but it highlights the point that the very subject of protective factors is less researched, documented, discussed and ultimately known about within or in relation to probation practice when compared to risk factors.

Relevance of protective factors in probation practice

The National Probation Service’s (NPS) approach to assessing and managing risk of serious harm is outlined in two key guidance documents: Risk of Serious Harm Guidance (NOMS, 2009) and Risk of Serious Harm: Supplement to 2009 Guidance (NOMS, 2014). The guidance states that the underpinning model of risk of serious harm assessment is that, whilst offenders are responsible for their own actions, their behaviour is influenced by the interaction of risk factors and protective factors that make the offender more or less likely to cause serious harm to others and by the interaction of offender, potential victim and circumstances (NOMS, 2014). The guidance makes clear that practitioners need to assess which factors are indicative of risk of serious harm and which act as protective factors. The 2014 document contains a definition of protective factors as follows:

Protective factors that may make risk of serious harm less likely…range from controls that are externally imposed on an offender to strengths and resources developed by an offender over time which enables them to exercise self-controls and pro-social behavior. (NOMS, 2014: 7)

As well as defining the overall term ‘protective factors’, this document also briefly explains what it means by ‘strengths’, ‘resources’, ‘external controls’ and ‘capacity to engage’, as follows:

Strengths – (or internal protective factors) refer to what the person has within themselves to support pro-social behaviour (e.g. hopefulness, well-developed social skills).

Resources – (or external protective factors) refer to what the person can draw on from the world around them to support pro-social behaviour (e.g. rewarding personal relationships, satisfaction in their employment, rehabilitative interventions provided as part of the sentence).

External controls – are actions taken by criminal justice and other agencies that place restrictions on an offender’s actions, whereabouts etc to limit their capacity to cause serious harm to others.

Capacity to engage – refers to the extent to which the person is motivated and able to respond to and make a positive commitment to those activities and restrictions which are in place to manage the risk of serious harm, taking account of any learning difficulties. (NOMS, 2014: 7)

These definitions were used as the working definitions for the purpose of the research, as it could be reasonably assumed that practitioners would be aware of them.

Within risk assessment there are far more tools that focus on risk factors than those that either solely or partly incorporate protective factors, and such tools typically assess empirically derived risk factors to arrive at an overall risk-classification or judgement (De Vries Robbé and Willis, 2017). Indeed, this is true within probation practice, where the primary risk assessment tool, the Offender Assessment System (OASys), whilst multi-faceted, ultimately serves to support practitioners in assessing risk factors and producing plans to manage risk. OASys does enable practitioners to evidence and assess protective factors, but the term ‘protective factors’ features minimally within the tool or its extensive guidance. There is more reference to the term ‘positive factors’, which may or may not mean the same thing, but largely OASys is geared more to identifying ‘problems’ and whether these are linked to offending behaviour and/or the risk of serious harm.

There is one tool used in probation practice that does incorporate protective factors, and that is the Active Risk Management System (ARMS). ARMS is a dynamic risk management framework that draws information together into a risk management plan for managing adult male sex offenders (NOMS, 2015). Rather than relying upon historical factors to guide risk assessment, ARMS focuses on the ‘here and now’ and a range of dynamic risk and protective factors found to be predictive of recidivism or desistance from offending (NOMS, 2015). ARMS came into use within the NPS in 2015 and was the first risk assessment tool to explicitly incorporate protective factors, to define specific protective factors within a tool and encourage practitioners to assess them in their own right. ARMS has therefore brought to the fore within probation practice the importance of assessing protective factors, as well as risk factors, but for all its merits, it has in some ways highlighted the limitations in the knowledge of probation practitioners about the significance and role of protective factors and how to assess them.

The specific purpose of the research was to explore how well protective factors are understood and assessed within probation practice in the assessment and management of risk of serious harm. The hypothesis was that probation as a discipline could be doing better in this area of practice. The hope was that this research would shed light on what it is that is limiting focus on protective factors and test if this is to do with a lack of knowledge about protective factors, how risk assessment tools are being used, lack of confidence amongst probation practitioners or any other factors.

Methodology

The method of data collection utilised in this research was one-to-one, semi-structured interviews which were conducted over the summer of 2017. The sample of respondents was made up of 10 qualified probation officers working in the NPS, within two Local Delivery Units (LDU) of the South East and East Division, six from one LDU and four from the other, between them working across five separate offices. Within this group, however, were POs working in different areas, so whilst the majority (seven) were full time offender managers, one of them worked half their time in the Youth Offending Team, one worked in a Court team and one was a Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP) facilitator who also had responsibility for the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) pathway. The length of experience of the respondents ranged from two and a half years to 15 years with the average being just under eight and a half years. Interviews took place in person and averaged around one hour in length. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed by the researcher. All interviewees gave their signed consent.

The main limitation of this methodology was that, given the short time period for this research and the fact it was being completed whilst the researcher was still working full time in their day job, albeit with some workload relief, the sample would inevitably be small and the number of interviews would be limited. The convenience nature of the sampling strategy meant that the sample did not end up with an exact balance of POs from the two LDUs, and all the respondents to a greater or lesser extent were known to the researcher. With regard to ethical issues, it was not identified that this area of research would infringe on anyone’s rights or cause any harm. The biggest concern was how the research would be perceived by practitioners if they felt as though their practice were under scrutiny. Respondents were provided with a research information sheet ahead of the interview, providing assurances about how the data would be used and stored. Respondents were also asked to sign a consent form agreeing to take part in the study and being audio recorded, to confirm they had read and understood the information sheet and to agree to the use of anonymised quotes in publications. This research was approved by and compliant with the expectations of the HMPPS National Research Committee.

In relation to the data analysis, a deductive approach was adopted, in which there was a predetermined framework for the analysis that was used to analyse the data alongside the hypothesis. The themes and concepts were decided before the analysis started, and these were imposed on the material. This approach was chosen as it is relatively quick and because depth or new understanding was not specifically being sought. Working from the transcriptions of the interviews, the first approach was to go through and identify responses that fitted with each of the themes. In doing this, keywords were selected that provided data in line with these themes, and these were put in to a spreadsheet. It was then recorded where each subsequent respondent had provided the same or different responses to give a record of both common and unique points. Because of the relatively small amount of data that could be gathered within the timeframe, caution was exercised in making generalisations.

Research findings

Meaning (What do practitioners understand by the term ‘protective factors’ and what other words or terms do they associate with protective factors?)

There was clear consensus from all 10 respondents that protective factors stop, prevent or reduce reoffending. A majority of respondents, in answering this question made reference to ‘desistance’. One of the most succinct responses given to this question, referencing desistance, was:

A simple way of putting it in terms of probation risk assessment is that a protective factor is a strength, a circumstance, a way of thinking that protects the service user, or assists the service user, enables the service user to overcome and desist. (Respondent 8)

The term most commonly used in talking about what protective factors means was the term ‘positives’, and this appeared to be the most widely used in practice as an alternative to ‘protective factors’. One fairly broad response given to the above question was:

I’d say it’s all the positive things about the service user, positive things they’ve got going for them…all their areas where they’ve got potential. (Respondent 4)

This definition appears to fit well with a holistic, strengths-based approach, and indeed protective factors and the positive approach of incorporating the offender’s strengths into risk assessment corresponds with the Good Lives Model (Nee and Vernham, 2017). One possible reason for ‘positives’ being mentioned so frequently is because it is the term most widely used within OASys. This raises the question as to whether positives and protective factors are synonymous. OASys does not appear to have a definition of ‘positive factors’ in its guidance, although it does give some examples, but it was clear that in the minds of a number of practitioners the terms appear to be taken as meaning more or less the same thing.

When examining where practitioners’ thinking about protective factors fitted within the working definition, it was clear that, in every case, each respondent focused more on one or another of the four features of protective factors as contained within the NOMS (2014) definition used in this research. Half of the respondents talked about protective factors being something about the offender, something internal which fits with the definition’s explanation of internal factors or strengths. Fewer respondents focused on external resources, but those that did tended to emphasise this area and give less attention to the internal factors. Most revealing, perhaps, was that only one person voluntarily referred to external controls as being protective factors. Even in this case, the individual had a bit of a personal debate about it before explaining how they felt they could be protective. All the other respondents needed prompting to think about external controls and their responses to this were mixed. Two respondents outrightly rejected the notion that external controls could be protective, one of these stating:

I wouldn’t say just because you go ‘you can’t go to that certain place or you can’t contact that person’, I wouldn’t say that’s a protective factor, I think that’s a control that probation or the police has but I wouldn’t look at it as a protective factor because a lot of the people I’m dealing with fight against it left, right and centre. Its only when they’ve got that ability and willingness to change that they will. (Respondent 2)

It is perhaps when you incorporate capacity and willingness into the equation that the protective nature of controls can be seen. Compared to other forms of protective factor, external controls may be limited in the effect they can have on desistance, but as some argue (Kemshall, 2008, cited in Weaver, 2014), they can be considered to have protective qualities in the short term where offenders can understand the relationship between such controls and the management of their behaviour and are therefore more likely to accept and comply with them. However, as with any restrictive measures, they are only as effective as an individual’s willingness to comply with them. Willingness in this sense would be something regarded as a feature of ‘capacity to engage’, and so we can see how the different types of protective factors interrelate. The remaining respondents, when reading the NOMS (2014) definition, agreed that external controls could have a protective effect, but it was telling that this was not something that automatically came to mind when thinking about protective factors.

The initial focus for this research was on how protective factors are assessed and used in the assessment and management of risk of serious harm. However, it soon became apparent that this was not the specific focus of the respondents. Indeed, nobody made reference to ‘serious harm’ when thinking about the meaning of the term, and it was quite clear that discussion was more around reoffending, rehabilitation and desistance. One might reflect that one difference between ‘serious harm’ and reoffending is that the former is more focused on the present or short-term future, whereas the latter is more related to the long-term changing of behaviour. Protective factors indeed are relevant in both cases and, as outlined in the NOMS definition, range from external controls, which tend to be in place in the short-term, to internal strengths which an individual is going to need to develop and maintain in the long-term if they are to be successful in desisting. Respondents did not specifically make this distinction themselves, and this would benefit from further exploration.

Where does knowledge come from? (Where have practitioners got their knowledge about protective factors from, what guidance, literature, etc., have they read or do they consult to learn and inform themselves?)

More than half of the respondents made reference to their probation officer training. Bar one, the respondents giving this response all trained and qualified as probation officers within the last four years. There are two possible reasons for this: on the one hand, the application of desistance theory and knowledge within probation training and practice has become more prominent within the last few years but, on the other hand, those who trained more recently will recall their training better and perhaps have fewer sources of knowledge to draw on. Indeed, at the other end of the spectrum, three of the most experienced respondents cited their experience and/or ‘common sense’ as informing their understanding of protective factors. Half of the respondents, from across the range of experience, referenced OASys as being a source of knowledge, and four made reference to ARMS. Three respondents mentioned desistance theory/literature as a source of knowledge with some names of prominent academics given, but little detail was provided in terms of what they had read or the extent of their knowledge around desistance.

Other than references to desistance, no respondents talked about research more generally or cited any specific journals or articles. The few respondents that expressed an interest or showed some knowledge in research were at the more experienced end of the spectrum. It is perhaps worth noting that changes in the training of probation officers, particularly since the replacement of the Diploma in Probation Studies, means that trainees are employed as full time probation service officers, they have more casework and in the NPS more complex work, less time dedicated to reflection, and the newer qualifications they undertake have less academic input from the higher education institutions. The time and capacity for qualified probation officers to access and digest research is also likely to be a factor. Whatever the reason, it is a concern because all the work of probation has been and remains informed by research and is reliant on research to continue to inform and develop practice.

Assessment (How are practitioners assessing protective factors, how do they gather information about protective factors and what do they think is the relationship between risk factors and protective factors?)

The unanimous response to how information is gathered about protective factors was ‘the offender’; that is, interviewing or asking the offender and variations of this. This was perhaps an obvious response to expect but nonetheless encouraging, as it demonstrates that practitioners regard the offender as the ‘expert’ about themselves. A response to this question which nicely highlights this attitude was:

The interview with your offender, when you’re asking them your questions; naturally in the conversation you’re trying to find out who they’ve got around them, what support network they’ve got, what did they have before. (Respondent 4)

Another response that a majority of respondents gave to this question was ‘other agencies’, usually given in this generic form rather than identifying specific agencies. How information about protective factors can be gathered from other agencies was not specifically explored, but a number of respondents indicated that corroboration from third parties was one way of determining if protective factors were in place and if/how they were protective. Other sources of information cited included previous assessments, records and offender managers, undertaking structured offending behaviour work and family. Whilst only a few respondents suggested family as a source of information, a number of others also indicated that it would be good if they, practitioners and the organization, were able to engage more with family, not least in helping to determine if family is itself a protective factor.

The next few questions, about how respondents assess protective factors were, perhaps more than any others, the ones that they struggled with the most and some responses to these questions were limited, not so much in number but in depth. A number of respondents shared views such as ‘I don’t think about it’ and ‘it’s just part of risk assessment’ for example:

It’s hard to say how you assess them, you’re just doing the job of assessing. So, when someone asks you how do you assess it, it’s hard to actually think, what is it I’m doing when I’m assessing risk? (Respondent 4)

Some responses provided insight into the thinking behind whether something is protective, as demonstrated by this respondent:

Someone who was homeless for a long time, obtained accommodation and decided not to shoplift because now he’s got the accommodation he’s worried he’s going to lose it if he goes to prison, this is the evidence that accommodation is a protective factor. (Respondent 10)

This respondent went on to say that accommodation has multiple protective purposes, and indeed the above example helps to demonstrate this. On the face of it, it indicates that accommodation is an external resource that is acting as a protective factor in this case, but the fact that the practitioner has included the offender’s concern about losing the accommodation might suggest it is in fact their attitude (an internal strength) that is providing protection. This is highlighted to make the point that it is important to have some knowledge of what the protective quality is because it helps inform the offender and the practitioner of what aspects need to be maintained in order to retain the protection and thus which bit, if it were lost, could potentially become a risk factor.

Another interesting insight shared by one respondent when discussing assessment was this:

If they could cope fine without it [protective factor], it wouldn’t be as much of a protective factor as if it would lead to chaos if they didn’t have it. (Respondent 6)

This provides some insight into a process of assessment, in terms of determining whether something is protective. The indication here is that the factor is something external, something tangible that could be lost, and thus the determining factor as to whether indeed it is protective is how someone copes with its loss. This again alludes to the inter-relationship of different types of protective factor because other internal risk/protective factors will also be present, and if someone copes well with the loss of an external factor, then potentially strengths such as resilience and good coping skills could be at play.

Rather than seeing the assessment of protective factors as a part of risk assessment, some talked about protective factors as if they were in some way separate to ‘risk’. Two respondents, for example, used the phrase ‘err on the side of caution’ when discussing assessing protective factors. One of these spoke about how protective factors and rehabilitation need to come second to risk factors and public protection when managing those who pose a high risk of serious harm. It was interesting that they had separated the factors out like this, that protective factors could not be regarded as factors that could actually help manage risk of serious harm but rather were more linked to rehabilitation. There was also a sense from some that they really needed to be persuaded that a factor was protective:

If someone tells you that [something is protective] I wouldn’t take it on [face value], I’m probably a bit too cynical in that I’d think ‘oh really, are you just trying to persuade me that everything is hunky dory’. So, I’d be quite sceptical I suppose unless you see it with your own eyes or you’ve assessed it over time. (Respondent 5)

This contrasts sharply with our attitude towards risk factors which for the most part tend to be taken at face value. Practitioners are right to investigate and explore protective factors because what might at first glance appear to be protective in terms of what the individual, and indeed research, tells us, their presence is not necessarily protective in every case. As Thornton et al. (2017) state, in assessing protective factors one needs to be attentive to the degree to which protective processes are liable to operate, not just to whether specific factors from a list are present. A couple of respondents indeed made reference to the process of assessment requiring more than just counting protective factors and balancing them alongside risk factors. Assessment of protective factors comprises an important part of the comprehensive assessment and, like assessment in general, needs to be ongoing (De Vries Robbé and Willis, 2017).

Overall, the interviews yielded a lot of interesting responses to this question, demonstrating some significant thinking into assessing protective factors. This was not common across the board, however, and without specific case examples given, or the researcher looking up actual risk assessments, it was hard to determine how this actually manifests itself in practice. Nonetheless, when asked ‘How do you assess that something is protective?’, this response nicely captures the sorts of questions that one might need to consider:

I think it would depend on how that factor was intended to be protective, how that measure, how that relationship, how that self-management strategy was intended to be protective. And say in the case of a family or something, what’s the offender’s grasp of what that means to them, what the problems are, what the obstacles are, what could go wrong, what their expectations are. If they’re presenting something ‘oh well, it’s OK because I’ll be living with my mum and dad and they’re really supportive’, OK what if one day they’re not, what if they’ve got too higher expectations. (Respondent 7)

Assessment tools (Where and how are practitioners recording and assessing evidence of protective factors within OASys and what other assessment tools are they using to assess protective factors?)

In relation to OASys, there were two responses given by a majority of respondents as to where they record information about protective factors, which were ‘throughout’ or ‘in every section’ and the Risk Management Plan. With the former, this tended not to have much detail attached to it though often reference was made to the guidance above the text box that states, ‘please include any positive factors’. This discussion raised an interesting question as to whether scoring something as zero in OASys, meaning ‘no problems’, equates to a protective factor. Some thought so, some weren’t sure, and again possibly in the context of OASys, on balance, if it appears to be a ‘positive’ it is likely to be considered as being a ‘protective’ factor. The alternative might be that it is just the absence of a risk factor, which in turn begs the question: is this a protective factor?

In relation to the Risk Management Plan within OASys, most commonly, references were made to the section about ‘support and controls’ as being the logical place to record what protective factors are in place. This section has more of a focus on external factors and, in terms of protective factors, that would include both the external resources (which would translate here as ‘support’) and external controls. A majority of respondents also identified the Risk of Serious Harm (RoSH) summary in OASys as another place where they recorded information. In particular respondents cited the section ‘What factors are likely to reduce the risk?’. Whilst it does not specifically make reference to protective factors, this section gives some useful guidance as to what to include in this section. References to protective factors throughout OASys, including in the assessment and the guidance manual, are minimal, and yet as this section indicates, assessors are being asked to consider them and record information about them but with reference to other terms and phrases. This highlights the importance of language and how practitioners understand the different terms and phrases, as was explored in the questions around meaning.

The foremost other tool that eight out of ten respondents mentioned was ARMS. Detailed insights into the tool were not forthcoming, and in the end the data gathered around the use of ARMS was minimal, adding little overall to the research. It is probably worth noting that the highest number of ARMS assessments any individual respondent had completed was two, and so knowledge and experience of the tool was limited. Other tools that were mentioned were role-specific and included SARN-R (Structured Assessment of Risk, Need and Responsivity) used by SOTP facilitators, AssetPlus used by the Youth Offending Team, and the ERG 22+ (Extremism Risk Guidance) used by those working with terrorist/extremist offenders. What the research revealed about SARN-R and AssetPlus in particular indicated that they have a greater focus on protective factors and aspects of desistance than OASys which, being newer tools, might be expected. Similarly, whilst not an assessment tool, but worth mentioning here, those respondents who spoke about the Offender Personality Disorder pathway talked about how case formulations with psychologists include thinking about the presence of protective factors.

Ability/limitations/attitude/confidence (How able do practitioners feel in assessing protective factors, what is limiting them from focusing more on protective factors, how important do they think protective factors are in the assessment and management of risk of serious harm and what would increase their confidence to give more weight to protective factors?)

Firstly, in terms of ability to assess protective factors, responses were quite individual but, on the whole, practitioners mostly feel able, though a few stated that they were only ‘relatively/fairly confident’ in their ability and others stated, ‘it is difficult’ or their ability was ‘developing’. Overall, therefore, whilst no-one overtly stated that they struggled with it or could not do it, no-one appeared really confident in their ability. In relation to attitude, it was pleasing that everyone had a positive attitude towards protective factors in terms of their importance in risk assessment. A majority of respondents reported that they consider protective factors to be ‘important’ or ‘very important’ and that practitioners ‘need’ to identify them. Any slightly negative attitudes tended to be linked to factors limiting practitioners from focusing more on protective factors rather than the concept of protective factors itself.

In terms of what is limiting practitioners from focusing more on protective factors, there were two responses that a majority of respondents provided which were ‘time’ and ‘the culture of the organisation’, as captured by these responses:

Protective factors probably demand more of an investment of our time if we’re going to assess it properly. (Respondent 5)

There aren’t enough hours in the day to invest the time and effort in to supporting people to make sure that they are building on protective factors and maintaining protective factors. You get a snapshot of someone for a very short period of time, and if you could spend an entire day working through each issue at a time it would help a lot. (Respondent 3)

The fact that the job is so focused on risk. (Respondent 6) [In response to the question what is limiting you from focusing more on protective factors?]

Basically, our whole caseloads are high risk, I do think it’s difficult for people to perhaps look at some of the positives…the reason I came in to the job was to pick up on some of those things and work with those. Yeah we have to protect the public I get that, but also we need to work on their strengths and if their strengths can be protective to them [then] we need to do that. (Respondent 2)

Respondents talked about not having enough time for a number of things: one was spending time with the offender in order to gather the information they needed to be able to make assessments; another was the time needed to assess the information and determine if any factors are protective; and, as the second quote above indicates, yet another is the time to support offenders to develop and maintain protective factors. These responses appear to chime with responses given to the questions around assessment, in which respondents talked about needing more time to assess protective factors than they perhaps did to assess risk factors. Similarly, it fits with more general complaints by practitioners of having heavy workloads and not enough time to do various aspects of their work as well as they would like. In terms of the culture of the organisation, a majority of respondents explained that the organisation is too ‘risk averse’ and that this does not lend itself well to being able to focus on or effectively consider and assess protective factors. This resonated with some respondents’ concerns about the conflict between rehabilitation and public protection and the need to ‘err on the side of caution’ or, as Kemshall has noted, the need to make ‘defensible decisions’ (1998; Kemshall and Wood, 2007). For those that made these sorts of reference, it also provided some insight into their own confidence and attitude when working with protective factors, as demonstrated by this response:

The protective factors are all well and good and lovely but I suppose for me I maybe see them as a bit of an add-on. I maybe don’t give, yet, sufficient weight to them because I suppose we have been more focused on risk, risk, risk and focusing on those factors more. (Respondent 5)

There is no criticism levelled at this response, since it is one that perhaps fits within the overall culture of the organisation, and it is positive that it indicates that in future, in the right climate, they would give more weight to protective factors if indeed the culture supported that move.

Examples (From their own cases and experience, what sort of factors are practitioners identifying and assessing as protective?)

Respondents produced a list of some 47 unique examples of protective factors, and the most common were family, employment, support and relationships. The first thing to note in relation to these examples is that these are all what the definition would regard as external resources. Indeed, seven out of the ten most cited examples were external resources and invariably were the examples that respondents gave quickest before thinking about others. Overall, 18 different examples of external resources were given but, interestingly, 20 different examples of strengths were provided. The difference was that most of these were only mentioned by one person. The strength that was most cited by respondents was attitudes, which in itself is a very broad term. Other examples that were cited by more than one person included maturity, hope and awareness of their behaviour/problems. These responses are consistent with answers given to the first question in the interview about the meaning of the term ‘protective factors’, where respondents talked more about this in terms of it being something internal in the offender rather than about external factors. However, contrastingly, throughout much of the rest of the interviews, and when making reference to cases or illustrating points, invariably it was external resources that respondents discussed. This suggests that when thinking about protective factors in abstract, theoretical or hypothetical terms (possibly idealistic terms), it is internal factors and strengths that practitioners think about and give greatest weight to in terms of protective quality. Conversely, in practice terms, when thinking about real cases and referencing real assessments, it tends to be the external resources that are given the greater focus. This can perhaps be explained by the nature of risk assessment, insofar as it is easier to identify and assess external, tangible things such as accommodation and employment than it is internal, intangible things such as an individual’s level of maturity and hope. Taken a step further, in terms of risk management, accommodation and employment, for example, where they exist and are positive, they are often cited as means for managing risk, whereas it is hard to imagine seeing a risk management plan reference an individual’s maturity and sense of hope as being sufficient to manage risk.

Examples of protective factors that would be considered controls were, in the main, far fewer than with any of the other categories. Examples were licence conditions related to things like exclusion zones, Global Positioning System (GPS) tagging and residency. When thinking about their own cases, most respondents did not identify any specific controls as examples of protective factors and, as explained earlier, some did not accept that external controls could be considered as protective factors. When analysing the data it was apparent that some examples were of more than one type of protective factor. Highlighting this point is the example, given by four respondents, of ‘completing a programme’. Firstly, the imposition of a licence condition or court order requirement was likely to be the main reason why an offender would be attending a programme, so initially it would be considered an external control. Second, the provision of the programme and the offender having the opportunity to access it would be considered an external resource. Third, the offender’s motivation and willingness to attend and engage with the programme would be about their capacity and, fourth, any new skills the individual is able to develop and put in to practice having completed the programme would be considered a strength. This demonstrates just how important ongoing assessment is and how it really can help to know what the protective quality is so that it can be supported and maintained.

Conclusion

The data gathered in this study has helped to provide some insight into probation practitioners’ knowledge and understanding of protective factors and skills in their assessment. The findings highlight some good areas of practice and indeed some areas where knowledge and practice could be improved. There is certainly something to be said about the wider context this subject is operating within. It was notable that a number of respondents alluded to the culture of the organisation as limiting their focus on protective factors. There is now a significant proportion of the workforce (all of the interviewees included) who have trained and worked in the last 15 years as probation has moved more to a risk- and public protection-focused approach. Whilst there has in recent times been more consideration of theories and approaches linked to desistance and the strengths of individuals, there is no denying that probation is still a risk-focused organisation. It was very encouraging that everyone held a positive attitude towards protective factors, what they represent and the idea of focusing on the positive things in someone’s life. The impression was that this is the sort of approach that a) people had in mind when they first joined probation and b) they would like to see the organisation embrace more. This will only work if it is linked to a wider cultural change and, arguably, that may only occur with legislative change. As it is, the challenge for the organisation and practitioners alike is to be able to strike the right balance between its competing demands, to ensure risk is managed but to incorporate a greater focus on protective factors as a means of managing risk and supporting desistance. More discussion and reflection about protective factors by and between practitioners and their line managers could help with this. Similarly, whilst OASys remains the primary risk assessment tool used in probation practice, greater focus needs to be put on the areas within it that do enable practitioners to consider protective factors and for greater consideration to be given to whether areas not identified as risk factors could in fact be protective factors. Finally, what has been highlighted in this research is that practitioners who were interviewed are not accessing and using the guidance that is available to them, and so there is a need for the profile of guidance to be enhanced and for practitioners to ensure they are accessing and using it.

If there is a move to focusing more on protective factors, what needs to be avoided is reducing the subject to a simple list, the cost of which would be greater difficulty in understanding how the different protective factors come together (Thornton et al., 2017), and indeed how they protect. The emphasis therefore needs to be on improving assessment skills so that practitioners are better able to identify factors that might be protective and to assess what the protective element of the factor is and the extent of its protective quality. Without this, assessments are likely to remain focused on risk factors, and too great a focus on negatives can cause practitioners to develop an unrealistically negative view of the assessed person (De Vries Robbe and Willis, 2017) and to over-estimate risk levels for particular individuals (Cording and Beggs Christofferson, 2017).

A logical next step in researching this subject would be to engage with offenders, to ask them about their protective factors. It would be particularly interesting to find out what offenders think their protective factors are but also how protective they consider the various elements of protective factors (strengths, resources, controls and capacity) are for them. A longer research study on protective factors might also be able to provide the opportunity to start exploring how and why protective factors protect. A greater understanding of protective factors would be two-fold; on the one hand, it should encourage practitioners to start supporting and developing these positive attributes within offenders to help them overcome obstacles to desistance (Maruna and LeBel, 2003, 2009, cited in Nee and Vernham, 2017) and, on the other hand, more accurate measurement of protective factors would improve the accuracy of risk assessment overall (Cording and Beggs Christofferson, 2017).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the support of the Sir Graham Smith Award and the Probation Institute for enabling this research and to the following for their support, guidance and encouragement: Wendy Fitzgibbon, Anne Worrall, Helen Schofield, Adrian Smith, Will Hughes and all those who participated. The full research report on which this article is based can be found here: .

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

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

References

Cording

Beggs Christofferson

(2017) Theoretical and practical issues for the measurement of protective factors. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 45–54.

De Vries Robbé

Willis

(2017) Assessment of protective factors in clinical practice. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 55–63.

Durrant

(2017) Why do protective factors protect? An evolutionary developmental perspective. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 4–10.

Fortune

Ward

(2017) Problems in protective factor research and practice. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 1–3.

Kemshall

(1998) Defensible decisions for risk: or ‘It’s the doers wot get the blame’. Probation Journal 45(2): 67–72.

Kemshall

(2008) Understanding the Community Management of High Risk Offenders. Maidenhead: Open University Press

Kemshall

Wood

(2007) High-risk offenders and public protection. In: Gelsthorpe

Morgan

(eds) Handbook of Probation. Cullompton: Willan, 381–397.

McNeill

Farrall

Lightowler

Maruna

(2012) How and Why People Stop Offending: Discovering Desistance. Glasgow: Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services.

National Offender Management Service (NOMS) (2009) Risk of Serious Harm Guidance. London: NOMS.

10.

National Offender Management Service (NOMS) (2014) Risk of Serious Harm: Supplement to 2009 Guidance. London: NOMS.

11.

National Offender Management Service (NOMS) (2015) ARMS – Active Risk Management System Guidance Manual. London: NOMS.

12.

Nee

Vernham

(2017) Expertise and its contribution to the notion of protective factors in offender rehabilitation and desistance. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 37–44.

13.

Thornton

Kelley

Nelligan

(2017) Protective factors and mental illness in men with a history of sexual offending. Aggression and Violent Behaviour 32: 29–36.

14.

Weaver

(2014) Control or change? Developing dialogues between desistance research and public protection practices. Probation Journal 61(1): 8–26.

15.

Yesberg

Scanlan

Hanby

Serin

Polaschek

(2015) Predicting women’s recidivism: Validating a dynamic community-based ‘gender-neutral’ tool’. Probation Journal 62(1): 3–48.