Executive Summary

Innovation and technological change are integral to the energy system transformations described in the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) pathways. Energy technology innovations range from incremental improvements to radical breakthroughs and from technologies and infrastructure to social institutions and individual behaviors. This Executive Summary synthesizes the main policy-relevant findings of Chapter 24. Specific positive policy examples or key takehome messages are highlighted in italics.

The innovation process involves many stages – from research through to incubation, demonstration, (niche) market creation, and ultimately, widespread diffusion. Feedbacks between these stages influence progress and likely success, yet innovation outcomes are unavoidably uncertain. Innovations do not happen in isolation; interdependence and complexity are the rule under an increasingly globalized innovation system. Any emphasis on particular technologies or parts of the energy system, or technology policy that emphasizes only particular innovation stages or processes (e.g., an exclusive focus on energy supply from renewables, or an exclusive focus on Research and Development [R&D], or feed-in tariffs) is inadequate given the magnitude and multitude of challenges represented by the GEA objectives.

A first, even if incomplete, assessment of the entire global resource mobilization (investments) in both energy supply and demand-side technologies and across different innovation stages suggests current annual Research, Development & Demonstration (RD&D) investments of some US$50 billion, market formation investments (which rely on directed public policy support) of some US$150 billion, and an estimated US$1 trillion to US$5 trillion investments in mature energy supply and end-use technologies (technology diffusion).

There has been an evolution of face-to-face work with offenders over the past century, as understandings of practice have altered and become more complex and as the world within which that practice occurs has developed. Philosophical, theoretical and organisational contexts have changed (see Chui and Nellis, 2003) but, throughout all of those changes, the responsibility to work with individual offenders, who are often flawed human beings, leading chaotic lives, has remained a constant.

This chapter primarily focuses on the development of practice with adult offenders, but the authors acknowledge that equally farreaching changes have taken place in how society views and responds to offending by young people (see Burnett and Roberts, 2004; Muncie, 2004; Goldson and Muncie, 2006). There has been a growth of the number and range of professionals and organisations involved in work with offenders both adults and young people. As the delivery of practice has become more diverse, so too have understandings of crime and those who commit it (see Gelsthorpe, 2003). Society itself has become more culturally diverse, with implications for the shape of services. The relative simplicity of the original police court missionary's role has given way to more complex and complicated responses to crime; responses which require policy, coordination and management. See McWilliams (1983, 1985, 1986, 1987) for a detailed overview of key developments in conceptual and political understandings of crime and offenders and the consequent characteristics of probation service interventions (also Robinson and Raynor, 2006).

The new millennium was followed by a plethora of publications which review contemporary practice (see Burnett and Roberts, 2004; Mair, 2004; McNeill et al, 2004), explore competing views of justice (see Worrall and Hoy, 2005; Farrant, 2006; Robinson and Raynor, 2006) or stimulate reflection upon the experience of practitioners in this climate of change with reference to the place of traditional skills (Leach, 2003; Atkinson, 2004; Farrow, 2004).

While there may be a sense of some continuity with the past, there are also, of course, some significant differences of emphasis that have stimulated changes in the way services to offenders and the courts are organised and delivered (see Worrall and Hoy, 2005; Gorman et al, 2006).

Introduction

These statements are very typical of what offenders say when asked to account for an offence. They frequently see offending as spontaneous events which happen without reason. However, while acquisitive crime, like most offending, has elements of impulsiveness, it is rarely an isolated act:

If practitioners accept too readily the offender's account of the theft or burglary as having ‘just happened’ and move too quickly to tackling the criminogenic (offending-related) needs of the offender then this is a missed opportunity. The opportunity missed is that of exploring in depth the factors or processes that have led to the offence occurring and thus being more precise in terms of understanding how to intervene to reduce the risk of reoffending. Offenders are less likely to be challenged about their offending behaviour and therefore more likely to see themselves as passive individuals caught up in events which are beyond their control, rather than people who have some choices in life.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore what is known about property offending and to help practitioners develop an understanding of how to work with it most effectively. Practitioners need to build up their skills and confidence in using searching questions, in order to have a better understanding of why offending occurs and how best to tackle it. Without this exploration of the decision-making processes underlying much offending, the practitioner is less likely to be aware of when the offender is being drawn into more serious crime.

The chapter begins by considering property crime and risk before exploring a number of theories about property crime, such as routine activities and rational choice, in order to build an understanding about why it happens in the way that it does.

Introduction

Many studies identify the prevalence of mental disorder amongst prisoners and other offenders (Hodgins, 2000; Lynch and Skinner, 2004). People who develop major mental disorders are more likely than those without such disorders to commit criminal offences. However, the link between offending and mental disorder is unclear and offending is not necessarily a consequence of mental disorder.

McInerney and Minne (2004: 43) suggest that “mentally disordered offenders have special problems; their offending places them apart from other psychiatric patients and major mental disorder separates them from most offenders”. The populist tendency to see crimes committed by people who are either ‘mad’ or ‘bad’ results in mentally disordered offenders being seen as doubly deviant. Mentally disordered people remain among the most vulnerable and marginalised in society (Silver and Miller, 2002; Lynch, 2005; Nolan, 2005), yet many see this group as justifying more restrictive approaches and having fewer civil rights than the rest of the population.

Instead of seeing that only a small number of mentally disordered offenders pose a serious risk of harm, there is a tendency for all mentally disordered people to be regarded by society as high risk. However, as Blackburn (2004: 298) notes, “mentally disordered offenders are a heterogeneous group” and whilst “there is little disagreement that the mental health needs of offenders are a challenge for rehabilitation, there is less agreement on whether mental disorder is a risk factor for criminal or harmful behaviour”.

Practitioners should always pay attention to mental disorder as a potential risk factor, especially when combined with substance abuse or anti-social thinking and behaviour. However, although it is not possible to state for certain that mental disorder is a dynamic risk factor there is an assumption (Andrews, 1995) that mental disorder also affects responsivity and will therefore need to be incorporated as part of interventions.

There is widespread agreement that people suffering with mental health problems are not best served by being locked up in overcrowded prisons; however, statistics show an alarming prevalence of mental disorder in prisons (see, for example, Bebbington, 2005).

Introduction

Making a risk assessment about an offender requires the assessor to gather information about potential risk factors and to think about how those factors interact with each other, and with the behaviour of concern (Baker, 2006). As considered in Chapter Two, risk factors are based on findings about groups of offenders; being those variables that have been found to be associated with the likelihood of offending behaviour (McGuire, 2002b). The precise causal connections for any individual offender have to be considered for that individual in context (Kemshall et al, 2006). This process is not unproblematic because of the danger that, when considering offending behaviour, variables are wrongly ascribed causal status (Murji, 1999; Shaw and Hannah-Moffat, 2004), the substantive causes being ignored or underestimated.

Misattribution or oversimplification of the causes of offending behaviour are themes that influence the experiences of Black or Minority Ethnic offenders within the criminal justice system (Bowling and Phillips, 2002). This is not unique to these offenders, a misunderstanding of cause and effect is possible for any individual. Difficulties can be identified, for example, in work with women offenders and this was discussed in Chapter Three. Challenges to practitioners in making accurate and holistic assessments across ‘race’ and culture are, however, compounded by a number of influences, including lack of knowledge. “If little is known about women offenders, even less is understood about the qualitative differences between white and non-white offenders” (Shaw and Hannah-Moffat, 2004: 101).

Differences of ‘race’ and culture may also cause more anxiety and self-doubt in the practitioner than other areas of practice, to some extent because of those gaps in knowledge. Judgements are also being made in a politicised context. Again this is not unique to this aspect of practice; however, the social and political context around ‘race’ and culture is often heightened (Davis and Vennard, 2006).

Despite this, practice across difference in ‘race’ and culture has to retain clarity of purpose. The role of the practitioner fundamentally remains that of assessing risk and seeking to intervene in ways that minimise risk of reoffending and harm to others. A lack of knowledge does not just distort and limit understandings of risk factors, it also potentially affects responsivity (see Calverley et al, 2004).

Welcome to this book about face-to-face work with offenders. It connects research and theory with practice, and explores how the key concepts of risk, responsivity and diversity can be applied in practice. By presenting ideas in an accessible form, it seeks to create a new ‘practice wisdom’ for engaging effectively with offenders.

Developing effective practice

The development of the concept of effective practice has revolutionised how offenders are worked with. With this development has come the recognition of the need for consistency and accountability in the way that services are delivered and offenders are managed. At the same time there has been a significantly heightened concern about risk and security and an increased desire to rely on procedures which offer technical certainty and greater defensibility. The downside to this development has been the increasing tendency for practitioners to adopt blanket approaches which seek to fit offenders to programmes rather than match interventions to offenders. It is our view that working effectively with offenders requires practitioners to keep offenders in focus by paying careful attention to the detail and complexity of offenders’ lives and not to make assumptions about how, or why, offending has occurred. This is in tune with one of the core principles of effective practice, that of targeting “energies, time and scarce resources on the right people and on those things that work” (Chapman and Hough, 1998: viii). We need to be building a body of knowledge which makes the connections between research, theory and practice and encourages practitioners to reflect on the detail of why some interventions have worked and others have not, and, as a result, refine their practice. This book does not claim to offer definitive knowledge or to be the only book you ever need to read about work with offenders. Inevitably, within the size and scope of this text, some important and specialist practice areas, for example, sexual offending and restorative justice, have not been included. Overall, this book strives to promote reflective and research- aware practice that is appropriate to a range of offenders.

Who is this book for?

This work is aimed to be informative for the student, trainee, practitioner and practice developer/manager, and all those involved, or interested in, making face-to-face work with offenders as effective as possible.

Risk, responsivity and diversity, the key concepts covered in this book, can help practitioners from a variety of contexts whose task it is to contribute to the reduction of offending behaviour. The hope is that such a reduction will be in the best interests of victims, of society and of the offenders themselves. In fact, this simple idea contains within it layers of complexity, in considering how to achieve this end, while balancing sometimes competing demands and responsibilities.

In a discussion of the goals of rehabilitation for mentally disordered offenders, Blackburn (2004) differentiates between reintegration, where the service provider is as much the agent of the offender as of society, and a narrower interpretation, in which the goals of intervention are to prevent offending and to protect the public. In this interpretation offender-centred goals are simply a means to those ends. Ward and Brown (2004: 244) in explaining the ‘good lives model’ suggest that “management of risk is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the rehabilitation of offenders” and go on to state the importance of equipping them “with the tools to live more fulfilling lives”. Arguably, those working with offenders have to make risk management and rehabilitation work together. Practitioners can be helped to do this by focusing on risk and responsivity and drawing on the knowledge base and skills that support these terms.

Risk focuses attention on public protection and the reduction of offending. It also seems reasonable to assume, however, that avoiding offending and consequent involvement with the criminal justice system will, of itself, be of benefit to many offenders. Responsivity draws attention to how interventions are delivered, in order to increase their effectiveness (Andrews, 2001). The aim of a responsive service is to engage the offender in working towards change and this necessitates a focus on them as an individual. There is much appeal in Blackburn's (2004: 302) premise, therefore, that the goals of intervention should (where possible) be “offender focused as well as offence focused”, providing this does not detract from protection of the public.

Both an accurate assessment of risk and a proper consideration of responsivity require practitioners to work with the detail of an individual offender's life. This requirement leads to the final focus of this book, that of diversity.