« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSIONS
8.1 A number of key themes are evident from this evaluation. This chapter discusses each in turn.
8.2 218 was set up to address the root causes of women's offending, and in so doing, to reduce the number of women from Glasgow who end up in custody. It was designed to do this through a series of sequential programmes, each of which addressed the needs of female offenders at various stages in their progress through 218.
8.3 218 offers both residential and community-based support through 3 distinct programmes designed both to address immediate needs and, alongside this, root causes of offending. The intended outcome is prevention of reoffending, but this is done by focusing on non-criminal justice issues such as addiction, physical and emotional health, housing, budgeting, and relationships. Although these issues appear to form indirect pathways to crime, both interventions and benefits extend well beyond the criminal justice arena. Clients take an active role in their own care plan and may return to 218 for further assessment and repeat programmes where necessary. Clients actively praised the regime at 218 and believed it addressed their needs. Staff also believed the support at 218 was appropriate and that its strength lay in the emphasis on quality relationships with clients.
Evaluation of a developing service
8.4 As a new service, 218 went through an initial planning phase to develop the services it would offer as well as methods for monitoring these services. In practice, the services offered were not 'cast in stone' from the first day 218 accepted clients; rather, services evolved to meet the needs of the clients more directly and as various means of service delivery were tried and tested. Equally, methods of monitoring the services had to change, both as the services changed and as the methods themselves proved more or less effective at gathering the appropriate information.
8.5 This mode of practice is ideal for a new service attempting to meet the needs of a vulnerable client group. It is not, however, conducive to meaningful evaluation in the short term. The evaluation presented here has looked to some degree at a 'moving target'. We have presented the evaluation in such a way as to reflect the changing nature of the service, ideally so that similar services may benefit from 218's experience. As Bloom et al. (2003: 89-90) have noted in relation to such innovative services:
"Ideally, outcome measures used in evaluations should be tied to a program's mission, goals and objectives. Also, outcome measures should go beyond traditional recidivism measures to assess the impact of specific program attributes on pathways to female criminality".
218 as an alternative to custody
8.6 218 was designed as a criminal justice resource and is funded entirely through criminal justice budgets. As such, the emphasis from funders has been the extent to which 218 is used by criminal justice agencies to prevent reoffending and to reduce the population of women (from Glasgow in the first instance) at HMP and YOI Cornton Vale.
8.7 To some extent the emphasis on reducing the population at Cornton Vale contrasts with the initial criteria for eligibility to the service defined by the Commissioning Group for 218. Again, these criteria were:
- Women offenders 18 years old or more with involvement in the criminal justice system;
- Women assessed as particularly vulnerable to custody or re-offending; and
- Women who may have a substance misuse problem.
8.8 It is useful to return to the source material for the origins of 218. The joint Inspectorates' report, Women Offenders - A Safer Way, called for a dramatic reduction in the population of women in prison in Scotland. The Inter-Agency Forum on Women's Offending that followed A Safer Way echoed this, as did the subsequent Ministerial Working Group's report, A Better Way. However, the reports equally emphasised that women's offending was strongly linked with the 'three A's' - Addiction, Anxiety and other forms of psychological distress, and past or current Abuse, all of which in turn were rooted in women's experience of poverty. Each report notes that offending will only be averted once these basic root causes are addressed. The 'Time Out' Centre (now 218) proposed by the Inter-Agency Forum and taken forward by the Ministerial Working Group never claimed its existence would make an immediate impact on the prison population, though it was likely to have an impact in the longer term, particularly where more persistent offenders could be removed from the system. Where referrals can be for women who would otherwise go directly to custody, all the better - but this was never intended to be the sole remit of services at 218.
Referrals to 218
8.9 Women were referred to 218 from a variety of sources. While many did not come directly from criminal justice agencies, they were almost always related to criminal justice in some way. Women often needed to be referred a number of times before they engaged in the service. The assessment process was designed to distinguish between those who were ready to engage and those who were not. The women referred to 218 were clearly involved in the criminal justice system, and all were clearly vulnerable women at risk of harm to themselves, and to others through their offending behaviour.
8.10 Initial referrals from 218 reflect the wider remit of longer-term diversion from custody. Stakeholders often mentioned referring women who were 'on the path' to custody rather than at immediate risk. Women who referred themselves to 218 often defined themselves in this way too or, more often, believed they were likely to die without some sort of meaningful help. The later increase in referrals from sentencers meant that 218 was more likely to make a direct impact on the prison population, at least in the short term. The drawback here was that clients referred in this context were perceived as less likely to be at 218 for the 'right reasons' and that they may not benefit from the service as readily.
Structural issues
8.11 Awareness of 218 initially seemed limited amongst agencies that should have a keen interest in the programmes there. This improved over time, and 218 had made active attempts to inform key agencies and services of their work. The 218 Centre was also an ambitious attempt to link services across a number of areas. An important barrier was the lack of an inter-agency monitoring group to assist 218 in its links with other agencies and services. Such a group only came into existence after a year and a half of operations at 218 and had yet to develop an active role.
8.12 Creating a 'one-stop shop' to address the needs of female offenders is an ambitious prospect and not without its difficulties. 218 has integrated a range of services under one roof and developed links with a range of additional services throughout Glasgow and, in some cases, in other parts of Scotland. Not surprisingly the interplay between services has had some initial difficulties, primarily in terms of relations between staff employed by Turning Point and those employed by the NHS. Relations were very good in general, but lines of accountability and ultimate responsibility for the various members of staff was blurred. Expected outputs and outcomes also needed to be defined. Clients did not perceive any detrimental effect on the service, but some staff tended to struggle and ultimately to become disillusioned with the way the service was run and their role in it.
8.13 The lack of a Monitoring Group to carry forward the work of the Commissioning Group is clearly part of this problem. Disagreements about the structure of 218 remained entrenched with no overarching authority there to clarify the terms of operation. Further effects of the absence of a Monitoring Group, combined with the initial structural problems within the Council, was the difficulty in ensuring outside agencies were aware of and complied with operational agreements with 218. A classic example of this was police entering the residential unit to arrest clients, in breach of agreed protocols between 218 and Strathclyde Police 62. On occasion, old warrants were enforced on clients who were engaged in or had successfully completed programmes at 218. Respondents suggested that improved communication between 218 and relevant decision makers such as the police, prosecutors, and courts regarding clients' progress would be useful in such instances (see also Over 21s Visiting Committee, 2005). While decisions on the enforcements of warrants are dealt with on a case by case basis, returning a woman who is making good progress at 218 to custody, for a warrant that existed but had not been served prior to her participation in 218, is likely to detract from the potential benefits of 218 interventions. Equally, respondents queried the benefits of sentencing a woman to custody for charges that were pending during her time at 218 or, arguably, that may have been incurred during a period of relapse (depending of course on the circumstances of the offences) where her participation was otherwise showing positive changes in her behaviour.
8.14 Finally, the broader context of services available throughout Glasgow must be taken into account in the evaluation of 218. Clients invariably had to move on from 218 to other services, and for the most part this was possible. The availability of appropriate housing was the main exception to this. Housing in itself was not necessarily a problem, but appropriate, safe housing for vulnerable clients who may previously have been unable to retain a tenancy or who were 'voluntarily homeless' was more difficult. Finding appropriate housing at the time it was needed could also be a problem, especially as this often had to be arranged at fairly short notice. Co-ordinating housing with community-based prescriptions and addiction support added another facet. Structural problems such as the use of project workers rather than designated outreach staff or external case workers to make such links also hampered attempts to link clients with resources outside. The ability for 218 to find suitable resources for clients to move on to, especially in terms of housing, could arguably 'make or break' their successful recovery from addiction and offending. Problems were not due to lack of good will or lack of resources so much as ensuring appropriate provision was available where and when it was needed, often at fairly short notice.
Measuring effectiveness
8.15 Reliable quantitative information to measure the impact 218 has on its clients is remarkably difficult to find. Even where figures are available, for example figures for the number of receptions into custody for women from the Glasgow area, it is not safe to attribute any changes in these figures specifically to the existence or otherwise of 218. What we can say is that, in individual cases, 218 has been used as a diversion from prosecution, for deferred sentence, and for direct bail, and as a condition of probation. Many of these approaches have successfully prevented female offenders from entering custody, at least in the short term.
8.16 The database now in place at 218 should make analysis of client characteristics and progress there (including criminal justice outcomes) dramatically easier to complete. The proposed standardised and validated assessment tools should also make this process both easier and more meaningful. Analyses using these resources would be sensible to conduct in the first instance after the database and assessment tools have been in operation for at least six months to a year - in other words, by spring 2006 at the earliest.
8.17 For the most part we cannot say whether the clients who engage with services at 218 would otherwise have ended up in Cornton Vale. What we can say is that they have previously been in custody and that the lifestyles and overall characteristics of these women are the same as those who do end up in prison. Women who continue along the path of addiction and offending are likely to end up in custody if they fail to receive some sort of support (Malloch, 2004). Often these are frequent and fairly short periods of custody, less due to the seriousness of a woman's offending than due to her failure to appear in court or to comply with community-based penalties (see for example Loucks, 2004; McIvor, 2004).
8.18 Most importantly, we can say that clients, staff, and key stakeholders overwhelmingly supported the work of 218 and, even where there were criticisms, believed these were not insurmountable.
8.19 The effectiveness of a programme like 218 is difficult to measure in quantifiable terms. Even where this may be possible, statistics on sentencing patterns and criminal justice outcomes are not yet available. Statistical evidence for any impact on sentencing patterns has thus far been inconclusive. Interviews with sentencers and prosecutors, however, show that they make use of 218 and value it as a resource. The interviews and statistics cannot say for certain whether the women referred to 218 would otherwise have ended up in custody in the short or long term; what they do say is that women who have engaged in services at 218 have been actively involved in offending and that they fit the profile of female offenders in prison. Similarly, it is too early in the operation of 218 to obtain meaningful data on reconviction rates, with the standard follow-up period being 2 years. Nevertheless, evidence from other studies has illustrated the correlation between engagement with services and reductions in re-offending.
8.20 Costs are equally difficult to assess as analyses of cost-effectiveness are based on crimes we assume have been prevented through a client's participation in 218 - in other words, based on what the client might have done. This evaluation has compared the costs of 218, as far as possible, to the cost of alternative options such as imprisonment and the longer-term savings that might accrue for any resulting reductions in offending that are achieved. The resources available at 218 have the potential to impact on many areas of a clients life and accordingly, it is crucial that wherever possible, the cost-benefits of preventative health care are considered while also acknowledging the unquantifiable benefits (such as improvements in appearance, coping ability and self-esteem). Most support for the effectiveness of 218 comes from 'testimonies' of clients, staff, and stakeholders. Such feedback was almost universally positive.
8.21 218 has developed a model of intervention based on a recognition of the needs of women in the criminal justice system, which attempts to respond to those needs and in doing so, tackles the root causes of offending behaviour.
« Previous | Contents | Next »