Developing a Voluntary Sector Model for Engaging Offenders

Abstract

This article proposes the development of a distinct offender engagement model for voluntary and community sector agencies, recognising the contribution of: reciprocity, reliability, consistency, and emotional pleasure, to effective offender engagement. Drawing on empirical data from users of a voluntary sector programme in England for young adults, this article makes an original contribution to the evidence base by: identifying the key elements (within the programme) of effective engagement with offenders; seeing how this relates to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) engaging practitioner model and companion literature review and considers the implications for voluntary sector criminal justice policy and practice.

Mentoring: Can you get too much of a ‘good thing’? Proposing enhancements to the ‘effectiveness framework’ the England and Wales Prison and Probation Service

“…While agency/self-efficacy was not identified as an outcome in Taylor et al's (2013) REA of mentoring outcomes, it is one of the seven dimensions of the Intermediate Outcome Measurement Instrument (IOMI) devised for mentoring and arts interventions developed by the researchers involved in the REA (Maguire et al, 2019). It was observed in young adult mentees (Wong et al, 2018) and in other voluntary sector mentoring schemes (Wadia and Parkinson, 2015). More recently, it appears implicit within the Probation target operating model in England and Wales.…”

“…for disaffected young people developed by Bateman and Hazel (2013). Neither is it considered in the voluntary sector model of engagement with people with convictions proposed by Wong et al (2018).…”

The Role of Needs Assessment in the Effective Engagement of People with Convictions

“…2 016). Based on our examination of engagement within the bounds of the supervision of people with convictions, and also previous considerations around the positing of a voluntary sector engagement model for people with convictions (Wong, Kinsella and Meadows 2018), we would suggest that effective engagement is a golden thread which needs to run through the multiplicity of provision which people with convictions are likely to encounter (Bunn 2019). Arguably, the principle of effective engagement across each aspect of the justice system from arrest through to sentence completion is implicit within the procedural justice literature (Tyler 2009, 2010).…”

“…This is a subject examined in detail in an earlier paper on the EOC tool by the authors (see Horan, Wong and Szifris 2019). It afforded an experienced holism that these supervisees had not experienced in previous assessments (conducted through OASys) and which was identified as being a positive feature of the support provided by voluntary sector agencies – in contrast to statutory probation services (Wong, Kinsella and Meadows 2018).…”

“…Merely assuming that engagement will happen is perhaps naïve. Variability in services engagement with people with convictions is all too common, as experienced by participants in drugs court in the United States (Gallagher, Nordberg and Lefebrve 2017) and young adults in England and Wales (Wong, Kinsella and Meadows 2018).…”