Wielding the Sword of Damocles: The Challenges and Opportunities in Reforming Police Out-of-Court Disposals in England and Wales

Neyroud, Peter; Slothower, Molly

doi:10.1057/9781137462497_16

Cited by 8 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Processing offenders through the court and prison systems is expensive (Neyroud, 2018a(Neyroud, , 2018b, may not work (Durlauf & Nagin, 2011) and does not fit all offence types. Prosecuting common, low-harm offences, even when admission of guilt and evidence have been secured, is often not in the public's interest.…”

Section: Out Of Court Disposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, unlike 'no further action' cases, which concern unproven, undetected or unsubstantiated suspicions, or are cases the criminal justice system has no interest in pursuing beyond the initial reporting of the crime, simple cautions are suitable for cases of a proven crime (HSE Guidance OG 00,018, 2018). Therefore, as cautions carry a formal criminal record, although unsanctioned (again, due to public interest considerations and overall legal policy in England and Wales to not prosecute or seek additional sentencing beyond the registration in a national offender database), simple cautions, like most other out of court disposals (see Neyroud, 2018aNeyroud, , 2018b, are not synonymous with dismissed investigations. Indeed, they are formally reported as 'positive' outcomes or 'detections' in official statistics.…”

Section: Simple Cautionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: a randomised controlled trial

Bland

Ariel

2023

J Exp Criminol

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Purpose What is the effect of having a criminal record compared to having the criminal record expunged in exchange for participating in a rehabilitative programme? The available evidence focuses on programmes comprised of the criminal record for the offence (i.e. labelling) and a punitive sanction or rehabilitative scheme. The interaction between the labelling and the sanction has made distinguishing the effect of each penological approach a challenge. Methods We use a pretest–posttest control group design with a cohort of 341 low-harm offenders randomly assigned to either a simple, unconditional, caution or a 16-week rehabilitation treatment programme (after which the criminal record was automatically expunged). New crimes and a measure of harm were used as outcome variables. Results Intention-to-treat analysis shows no significant difference in prevalence, crime count or crime harm. Factoring in those individuals who actually completed the programme changes this story. An instrumental variables analysis used to adjust for treatment compliance suggests that the offer to expunge the criminal record following participation in rehabilitation programmes reduces both crime count and crime harm. Conclusions We conclude that as evidence on the adverse effects of criminal records on recidivism mounts, out of court disposals that lead to an expungement of the label ‘offender’ may provide promising intervention for low-harm offences. The experiment also highlighted the importance of secondary analytic strategies in experiments alongside the standard intention-to-treat model.

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Section: Out Of Court Disposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Simple Cautionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: a randomised controlled trial

Bland

Ariel

2023

J Exp Criminol

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“…However, as Blakeborough and Pierpont's (2007) process evaluation of the pilots found, there were problems, right from the start, with training, consistency of decision-making and the knowledge and skills of police officers to set conditions. Ten years on from their implementation, Conditional Cautions were used in a very small number of cases and almost exclusively for offences of damage with conditions which were usually confined to an apology and a sum in compensation (Neyroud & Slothower, 2015). Part of the reason for this was the requirement for conditional cautioning to be approved by the Prosecutor, which meant that it was easier in most cases for an officer to charge and submit a file than opt for a Conditional Caution.…”

Section: The Challenge Of Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police-Led Diversion Programs: Rethinking the Gateway to the Formal Criminal Justice System

Neyroud

2021

Handbook of Issues in Criminal Justice Reform in the United States

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This chapter is focused on police-led diversion of offenders from the formal criminal justice process. Over the last 50 years, there has been increasing interest in the potential of diversion programmes, initially for young people, more recently for adults as well. Diversion has become associated with the Community Policing movement in policing. It has also been criticised for being a 'soft' option for offenders. The aim of this chapter is to explore the case for and, where appropriate, against police-led diversion, drawing on the best evidence available. The analysis shows how the evaluation evidence has developed and, with systematic review, becomes more persuasive. Starting from a brief overview of the history of police-led diversion, the chapter reviews that evidence base. It explores how the evidence suggests the most effective ways to use diversion. There is an assessment of the challenges of successful implementation, which has received increasing focus in the most recent research. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the importance of diversion in the reform of the criminal justice system.

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“…If incentives existed to handle each case in a way that reduced the CHI level of each offender's recidivism, the entire performance regime would turn towards crime reduction in a far more nuanced way. The Turning Point Project in West Midlands is an excellent example of this approach, in which police can take credit for not prosecuting first offenders by negotiating offender management plans under threat of prosecution as an alternative (Neyroud and Slothower, 2015). In addition to standard measure of recidivism, the experiment compared CHI levels of recidivism between those handled in that manner versus those randomly assigned to be prosecuted (from a pool of cases that are 100% approved by CPS for prosecution).…”

Section: Recidivism Analysis Of Chi Per Offendermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cambridge Crime Harm Index: Measuring Total Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines

Sherman¹,

Neyroud²,

Neyroud³

2016

Policing

203

227

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The logic of simply summing crimes of all kind into a single total has long been challenged as misleading. All crimes are not created equal. Counting them as if they are fosters distortion of risk assessments, resource allocation, and accountability. To solve this problem, Sherman (2007, 2010, 2011 and 2013) has offered a general proposal to create a weighted 'Crime Harm Index (CHI).' This article provides and explicates a detailed procedure for operationalizing this idea in UK: what we call the 'Cambridge CHI.' The new elements of the Cambridge CHI presented here are (1) the use of the 'starting point' in the national Sentencing Guidelines to define the number of days in prison for each offence type; (2) the exclusion of proactively detected, previously unreported offences, and (3) a comparative analysis of the Cambridge and other approaches to weighting crime harm, judged by a three-pronged test of democracy, reliability, and cost.

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Wielding the Sword of Damocles: The Challenges and Opportunities in Reforming Police Out-of-Court Disposals in England and Wales

Cited by 8 publications

References 21 publications

Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: a randomised controlled trial

Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: a randomised controlled trial

Police-Led Diversion Programs: Rethinking the Gateway to the Formal Criminal Justice System

The Cambridge Crime Harm Index: Measuring Total Harm from Crime Based on Sentencing Guidelines

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