Co-producing digitally-enabled courses that promote desistance in prison and probation settings

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to set out an approach to innovation in criminal justice settings that gives service users a “voice” through the co-production of digital content designed for services that promote desistance. The authors describe the benefits and challenges of involving service users in co-creating mediated digital content within a co-production framework. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a new methodology for developing desistance-oriented programmes. The authors draw on a distinctive co-production exemplar within a prison setting that captures the perspectives of people who have shared their voices and the authors begin to explore the impact that co-production has had for them and for the service. Findings The testimonies of service users involved in this exemplar provide insights into the benefits and challenges of co-production in the criminal justice system more broadly. Practical implications Co-production is a credible service design strategy for developing digital services in prisons and probation; Complementary Digital Media (CDM) provides a promising pedagogical approach to promoting desistance; CDM enables service users to share their voice and stories to assist their peers. Digitally enabled courses to promote desistance can be well suited to peer support delivery models. Originality/value CDM is a novel approach that uses co-production to create highly tailored content to promote desistance in discrete target groups. CDM can be used to digitalise processes within traditional offending behaviour programmes (OBPs). It can also enable the development of innovative toolkit approaches for flexible use within day-to-day therapeutic conversations between service users and criminal justice staff or peer supporters. CDM thereby offers practitioners in criminal justice settings an entirely new set of evidence-informed resources to engage service users.

Developing content to promote desistance in men who have committed intimate partner violence in same-sex relationships

“…These clips involved basic skills modelling examples to provide users with a clearer idea of what successful coping might look like. In their role as peer supporters, the co-creators of CDM assisted prisoners to access these clips (via in-cell computers) and to discuss how they could integrate such skills in their own day-to-day life (see Morris & Knight, 2018). Morris & Knight (2018) described the potential for CDM to complement conventional OBPs by using clips during existing face-to-face sessions and by making them available to participants outside of sessions to consolidate learning.…”

“…Focusing on men, Part 1 explores stakeholder responses to a proposed standalone CDM-based LGBT-inclusive course (developed under the name of "Spectrum"). Part 2 describes an application of the CDM co-production framework (Morris & Knight, 2018) to develop desistance-orientated content designed to be responsive to men who have used IPV against a male partner. No specific predications were made within the two-part study.…”

“…Each session would involve up to three separate rehabilitative conversations. The steering group agreed that the service would be designed in line with the CDM approach described by Morris & Knight (2018). Co-created CDM clips would provide an agenda for each rehabilitative conversation.…”

“…In line with the approach set out be Morris & Knight (2018), CDM content would be co-produced in a focus group (called a Service User Reference Group; SURG). To recruit volunteers, RRP staff promoted the co-production project amongst service users.…”

Youth Justice in the Digital Age: A Case Study of Practitioners’ Perspectives on the Challenges and Opportunities of Social Technology in Their Techno-Habitat in the United Kingdom

“…Notably, in the broader criminal justice sector (CJS), there is a general digitalisation agenda which is set to shape the way justice is done and experienced (Van De Steene and Knight, 2017). Where digitalisation is accomplished through co-production that places service users as close to the centre of provision as possible, then mitigation against issues such as non-adoption of technology is possible (Morris and Knight, 2018).…”