A project examined how the criminal justice and homelessness sectors could work together to prevent homelessness and reoffending.
Source: Better Together: Preventing reoffending and homelessness, Homeless Link
Links: Report | Summary | Inside Housing report
Date: 2011-Sep
A think-tank report said that the coalition government's plans to cut reoffending and public expenditure by rehabilitating prisoners failed to deal with key problems. Prisoners given custodial sentences of less than 12 months had the highest reoffending rate of any sentencing group: but offering only literacy and numeracy courses would not help this group to find work on release or address their underlying needs. Training would only be available for 'offenders who had been punished and show a willingness to reform': this eligibility criterion would inevitably lead to 'rehabilitative selection', allowing some offenders to slip through the net who were at high risk of reoffending.
Source: Carolina Bracken, Bars to Learning: Practical challenges to the working prison , Civitas
Links: Report | Civitas press release
Date: 2011-Jul
A think-tank report said that redirecting resources away from incarcerating offenders in prison into community-based alternatives that tackled the causes of crime was one way of more effectively rehabilitating offenders.
Source: Tess Lanning, Ian Loader, and Rick Muir, Redesigning Justice: Reducing crime through justice reinvestment, Institute for Public Policy Research
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Jul
A think-tank report said that co-operative and mutual organizations should be used to help the rehabilitation of offenders – allowing offenders, ex-offenders, professional staff, and community members to work in partnership, providing employment, promoting rehabilitation, and supplying comprehensive after-care services.
Source: Dave Nicholson, Cooperating out of Crime, CentreForum
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Mar
A think-tank report examined whether it was realistic to have a payment-by-results regime for reducing reoffending, given the commercial requirements of potential providers. It looked at what could be done to ensure a diverse market of providers, and what government needed to do to maximize the chances of success.
Source: Chris Nicholson, Rehabilitation Works: Ensuring payment by results cuts reoffending, CentreForum
Date: 2011-Feb
An article presented a case study of a housing-based service, provided within the community, for offenders who had learning disabilities.
Source: Angela Olsen and Sarah Heaton, 'Housing-based support: a successful alternative to secure accommodation for people who have learning disabilities and have offended', Journal of Learning Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, Volume 2 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Jan
A report said that offenders who drank harmfully were not offered as much support as those who used illegal drugs – even though alcohol misuse was a bigger cause of crime and ill-health.
Source: Rob Fitzpatrick and Laura Thorne, A Label for Exclusion: Support for alcohol-misusing offenders, Centre for Mental Health
Links: Report | CMH press release | Morning Star report
Date: 2011-Jan
A report said that enhancing educational services for offenders in the community could contribute significantly to a reduction in crime. It recommended that offender managers should place more emphasis on educational needs at initial assessment, and that education providers and offender managers should work together to ensure that offenders had access to the fullest range of opportunities possible – since many offenders did not know what provision was available.
Source: Rob Canton, Jean Hine, and Jo Welford, Outside Chances: Offenders learning in the community, Centre for Skills Development
Links: Report | Summary | CSD press release
Date: 2011-Jan