A blended approach to risk management

HM Inspectorate of Probation has published the latest report in its “Academic Insights” series which is aimed at everyone within the probation sector with an interest in the evidence base.

The Inspectorate commissions leading academics to present their views on specific topics in order to inform debate and help everyone’s understanding of what helps and what hinders probation and youth offending services.

The latest report is a particularly interesting one; “Risk and Desistance: a blended approach to risk management” has been written by Hazel Kemshall who is Professor of Community and Criminal Justice at De Montfort University.

The professor discusses how risk has dominated much of probation practice over the last 30 years while recognising the growing focus on desistance since the early 2000s. She describes how academics and practitioners have sought to develop a combined approach to risk management which uses both controlling and rehabilitative interventions. This approach is described as “integrated protection” and focuses on methods aimed at safely integrating individuals back into the community, while integrating rehabilitative strategies alongside community protection measures.

Essentially this “protective integration” approach aims to prevent individual further failure, community retribution and stigma while protecting the community from the harm of further offending. This balanced approach to risk management involves changing risky behaviours while meeting legitimate needs, reducing both risks and reoffending behaviours while avoiding over intrusion on those whose risk does not justify it. This report is published at the same time as a similar debate is flourishing in the United States with researchers questioning the approach of the probation service there in supervising the very large number (approximately one million) of drug offenders. A forthcoming paper from Jacob Schuman, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University School of Law, argues that the system of supervised release has become a “drug-control network focused on public safety” rather than rehabilitation.

The debate is also very topical in England with the National Probation Service and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies being reunified over this weekend with all probation staff working for the one public sector organisation known simply as the probation service from Monday morning. While the National Probation Service has not attracted the same level of criticism as that directed at the private CRCs over the last seven years, probation inspectors have consistently noted that NPS performance has been stronger in relation to risk management and protecting the public that it has in promoting desistance.

Ms Kemshall sets out the key principles of integrated protection, discussing how desistance can actually help risk management and the importance of building on strengths, promoting social capital and recovery capital and enhancing resilience while combating fatalism.

She concludes by arguing that all this work is ultimately “a balance between risk and rights, protection integration, desistance supportive work and control, with the appropriate balance tailored to the individual service user”. It is heartening to read that Ms Kemshall believes that it is a core element of probation practice for the supervising officer to use their skills to weigh up these balancing acts in a “transparent, and evidential way”.

The professor acknowledges that the overarching aim of the probation service will always be public safety but says that we need to be aware being overly cautious in our probation practice. She helpfully sets out five key questions for practitioners to consider when they are balancing risk and desistance:

1. Asking whether something can be done safely (e.g. the service user joining a group, becoming a volunteer), and assessing and evidencing the answer to this question.
2. Asking what could be put into place to make it safer and thereby potentially acceptable.
3. If concluding that it is not safe, clearly articulating and recording the grounds and evidence base for this conclusion. And considering what alternatives might be better.
4. Actions must be proportionate with a level that is commensurate with public safety; you can be precautionary up to a point, but this must be evidenced, reasonable, and justified.
5. Remembering that all decisions potentially come under public scrutiny, including legal challenge. So be prepared, be explicit, and record well.

Readers interested in reading the full report can find it here.

Photo: Courtesy of Probation Board for Northern Ireland