PART A: INTERVENTIONS FOR PRISONERS RETURNING TO THE COMMUNITY: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Executive Summary
Correctional authorities are tasked with protecting the community, humanely managing prisoners, facilitating prisoner reparation, assisting in offender reintegration, and providing advice on sentencing and release. These responsibilities must be fulfilled with an increasing prisoner population, in a community environment that can be seen as ever more punitive. The community is also more demanding in terms of financial accountability. In response, local and overseas correctional practitioners are increasingly embracing innovative approaches to improve the chances of prisoner rehabilitation, thus reducing the likelihood of ex-prisoners re-offending and so improving community safety. The provision of supports and services to prisoners after they leave custody is one such approach. This report summarises literature surrounding post-release interventions, discussing related concepts and theory, models of service delivery, and issues associated with the implementation of post-release services.
Often the aim of post-release services is offender reintegration: that is, not simply reduced recidivism, but active and productive community participation by ex-offenders. Correctional authorities are therefore not the only stakeholders in this correctional approach. Ongoing criminal careers and crime are costly to the whole community, so the provision of post-release services should be the concern of government agencies responsible for housing, health, and education; faith-based and voluntary organisations which provide social services; local businesses and industry; and the communities to which offenders return. The participation of these various sectors is also relevant because post-release adjustment is best addressed well before a prisoner is released, in what is more correctly called throughcare. Effective throughcare requires coordinated actions by government agencies, non-government service providers, and the community to ensure that returning prisoners do not fall through the service gaps between the agencies.
There are three levels at which innovative approaches to corrections can be viewed. The first is the philosophy that informs corrections, which is linked to the aims and methods that are used to achieve those aims. For example, the traditional approach is offender-oriented, aiming to alter offender behaviour through an adversarial justice system that generally ignores an individual's broader social context. In contrast, the newly evolving corrections of place is community-oriented. This ethos sees the focus shift to the community to which offenders return, building capacity and enlisting community resources to assist in reintegration. Any shift in correctional ethos will be accompanied by changes to the way a correctional system operates. System-wide service delivery is the second level at which correctional approaches can be considered. Operational changes discussed in the throughcare literature include the provision of a continuum of care, case management, balancing surveillance with support, and importantly, formal partnerships between all stakeholders. A good example of the new correctional approach in operation is the re-entry court, currently being piloted in various US jurisdictions.
The last level at which to consider innovative correctional approaches is that of the specific programs that are delivered within new operational frameworks. Many jurisdictions have realised the benefits of providing an evidence-base for their actions. This has given rise to a set of principles that research shows will bring about positive changes to offenders' behaviours, specifically to those aspects of an offender's life linked to crime, their criminogenic needs. These principles of effective correctional programming form the underpinnings of a number of programs and interventions used today. An evidence-based approach is not without its critics though, and some have argued that in its strongest form, it can be too narrow and like traditional corrections, too focused on changing the offender and ignoring his or her wider social context.
The shift in focus to the offenders' broader social context is in recognition of the social and economic disadvantages that research has shown characterise prison populations in Western jurisdictions. These same characteristics have also been linked to offending and re-offending. Some of the disadvantages associated with prisoners include poor educational attainment and employment histories, social isolation and exclusion, poor physical and mental health, and alcohol and other drug misuse. These disadvantages are often further compounded by experience of prison itself. In addition to the above, following release prisoners may experience stigmatisation and discrimination, lessened employment prospects, reduced access to housing, loss of family and social ties, negative mental health effects such as institutionalisation, increased risk of suicide and early death, and difficulties in accessing needed supports, such as drug treatment.
Prisoners are not an homogeneous group however, and some individuals will enter and exit the prison system with a disproportionate share of disadvantages. Prisoner subgroups that face particular challenges on release because of their social and economic positions - those with special needs - include those with mental illness or intellectual disability, women prisoners (especially those with dependent children), Indigenous prisoners, young offenders, and those who have been incarcerated on remand or for very short periods of time.
Research in the USA has shown that the collateral consequences of imprisonment (or those in addition to any crime prevention effects) can extend beyond the individual though, to that individual's whole community. The cycling of offenders in and out of prison over time can result in those communities' (typically) meagre social and economic assets being further diminished. Community collateral consequences can include stigmatisation of the whole community, where the area is labelled as 'bad', and which can lead to the businesses exiting the area, thus minimising employment prospects, and so on.
The complexity of the disadvantages confronting prisoners pre- and post-release means that individual offenders' issues cannot be addressed with a single generic program or intervention. Correctional systems that aim to provide throughcare ensure interventions match prisoners' unique situations through careful assessment of client needs early in the custodial term. Relevant authorities have developed a range of programs and interventions that can then be drawn upon as needed by individual clients, with the types of services delivered dictated by an often-reviewed case plan. In instances where in-house programs do not cater to needs, correctional authorities can tap into collaborations with external service providers to facilitate access to necessary supports. These collaborations also allow the establishment of post-release connections to the community for ex-prisoners.
Researchers and practitioners have implemented innovative programs that variously address post-release unemployment, post-release accommodation, alcohol and other drug misuse, and the psychological and social effects of prison, such as institutionalisation. Whilst the methods employed vary (eg counselling, developing literacy, facilitating access to social housing), these programs share common features, such as an acknowledgment that the focus of the intervention is probably only part of a wider network of challenges; or recognising the need to establish strong formalised partnerships between all agencies involved in addressing those challenges. Because of the highly intertwined and complex challenges confronted by special needs prisoners, special ways of delivering tailored services for these prisoner subgroups are also being developed.
Post-release and throughcare initiatives are at various stages of implementation in Australian and international jurisdictions. A key feature of new correctional approaches and the principles of effective correctional programming is the careful evaluation of the way in which programs are implemented. Process evaluation ensures consistency in implementation and allows program delivery to be refined. This is providing a body of knowledge regarding the obstacles to, and facilitators of, good practice. Features identified that make for smoother implementation include:
- the allocation of a lead agency to collaborative service partnerships
- active support for these collaborations - for this 'joined-up' working - at all levels of an organisation
- adequate resources and training for all staff, and
- new ways of ensuring offenders are aware of their rights and obligations, such as post-release contracts between offender and case manager.
Knowledge about good practice implementation must be complemented by knowledge about the most effective techniques for promoting reintegration. Outcome evaluations allow an assessment of how successfully programs achieve what they aim to achieve: whether or not they effect changes in clients. Process evaluation allows for program delivery to be monitored and refined. Evaluation and research provides evidence for funding bodies and the general public supporting the value of interventions, as well as highlighting ineffective programs. This information also adds to the knowledge base about what works in correctional practice. Unfortunately, research and evaluation of Australian correctional programming is scarce. Whilst knowledge gained overseas can be extrapolated to the Australian situation, there are unique features of our cultural mix, our history, our geography and our multi-jurisdictional justice and welfare systems that make local research essential.