Docs/ministry talk
CRIMINAL REOFFENDING and the FAILURE of CORRECTIONS:
Rehabilitating Criminals Ain’t That Easy
1hr address to the Northern Judges’ Conference, 1 November 2006
Introduction
My background: 5.5 years in prison; 30 years studying CJ; 19
years at UC and 18 years at SSF.
My mates who have returned to prison, and SSF.
The overall purpose of this talk
Is to try to explain why high recidivism rates persist, in
spite of the extensive efforts that have been made to
create correctional programs that work.
The Quest for Rehabilitation
The modern quest to address the problem of recidivism is more
than 200 years old.
It really began in 1764, when an Italian criminologist Cesare
Beccaria wrote an essay called On Crimes and Punishments,
which argued for a rational approach to punishment that would
reform criminals through a process of deterrence.
This led to a lasting experiment in penology
– the penitentiary –
which emerged in the early C.19 in the USA, and soon spread
around the world.
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The
penitentiary
austerity,
method
discipline
and
of
reforming
isolation
criminals
failed
through
miserably
so
a
variety of other methods were tried.
But none of these were any more effective in reducing levels of
recidivism.
‘Nothing Works’
Scientific scepticism about the chances of reforming criminals
began about 60 years ago.
Between
1937
and
1945,
divided
into
2
matched
650
delinquent
cohorts
to
boys
study
in
Boston
the
were
effects
of
different forms of treatment.
During
this
time
the
experimental
group
got
intensive
counselling, and the control got none at all.
The result was slightly higher levels of offending among the
experimental group.
But the big bomb landed in 1974 when Robert Martinson, having
participated in an assessment of 234 rehabilitation programs
reported worldwide, found hardly any that were effective.
He concluded:
"With
few
efforts
and
that
isolated
have
been
exceptions,
reported
so
the
far
rehabilitative
have
had
no
appreciable effect on recidivism".
This created a storm of controversy which I’ll return to in a
2
minute.
The New Zealand Experience
New
Zealand’s
experience
with
corrections
has
been
no
different.
For almost 100 years, NZ governments have been experimenting
with different sentencing strategies.
* These began with the sentence of Reformative Detention in
1910, which was abandoned in 1954 because it wasn’t working,
* For juveniles, Borstal Training was established in 1924 and
abandoned
in
1981
as
a
result
of
astronomical
recidivist
figures: 70% within 2 yrs,
* And in 1961 Detention Centres started operating as a short
sharp disciplinary shock for young 1st offenders.
DCs generated recidivist figures similar to Borstals so they
were replaced in 1981 by Corrective Training.
CT recidivism was even higher than DC.
So CT ended in 2002.
For a while it was believed that the reason Borstals didn’t
work was that reformable inmates were being contaminated by
tough, intransigent, ‘bad apples’ who dominated in the Borstal
system.
So in 1961 it was decided to try separating off hand-picked 1st
offenders
who
were
deemed
reformable,
3
and
putting
them
in
specialised
borstals
where
educational,
sport
and
training
would be of very high quality.
Inmates in these centres would become involved in the local
community and would be subject to intensive supervision and
treatment.
Two
such
institutions
were
established,
at
Waipiata
in
C.
Otago, and at Kaitoke near Wanganui.
9 years later it was discovered that reoffending among these
‘Star’ trainees was no different from the mainstream.
By the 1970s a number of NZ studies had failed to produce
positive results.
In 1971 the DSW declared that the chances of rehabilitating
young offenders were slim, and this was repeated by the PPRC in
1981.
This committee said:
We think a mistaken belief that prison can rehabilitate
has
influenced
whatever
policy
and
planning
has
been
developed over the past 40 years, and is still a major
factor in penal thinking, in spite of all the evidence to
the contrary.
[The problem of political digestibility].
Rehabilitation Revived
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So what happened?
The conclusion of Martinson in 1974 that ‘nothing works’ set
off a storm of debate worldwide and following intense critical
battering, Martinson eventually recanted.
Large numbers of researchers began to argue that interventions
can be made to work if they are correctly designed and applied.
Most
of
them
were
psychologists
who,
using
a
complex
statistical approach called ‘meta-analysis’, declared that many
criminals can be rehabilitated if they get the right programs.
On
the
other
hand,
some
meta-analysis
produced
different
results and found that treatment was ineffective.
The problem, it seems, lies in the high level of subjectivity
in the meta-analysis process, which allows the conscious or
unconscious biases of researchers to subtly influence the way
data are collected and organised.
That’s
why
researchers with the greatest commitment to the
rehabilitative ideal tend to get the most positive findings.
But
even
the
strongest
advocates
of
rehabilitative
interventions insist that getting positive results isn’t easy.
In order to work, a program must:
1.
Correctly
identify
the
‘criminogenic
offender.
5
needs’
of
each
2.
Be tailor-made to address those needs.
3.
Be delivered by staff who are:
4.
a.
properly trained;
b.
fully committed to the objectives of the program.
Be adequately resourced.
If any of these conditions are absent, results can be zero or
even negative.
We need to bear that in mind as come to analyse NZ’s efforts in
this field.
The Revival of Correctionalism in New Zealand
The scepticism of the 1981 PPRC didn’t last long and it was
soon forgotten.
8 years later, Clint Roper’s Prison Review advocated ‘A New
Way’ in corrections, which revived the correctional ideal and
suggested
reorganising
NZ
prisons
into
a
series
of
small,
localised, ‘habilitation centres’, each dedicated to addressing
the specific needs of each offender.
The idea of habilitation centres never took off,
but in the early 1990s psychologists within the DOC had become
convinced by overseas research which showed that recidivist
rates can be significantly reduced if the right programs are
administered to the right people by properly trained, resourced
and committed personnel.
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So in 1995 the Department of Corrections adopted a psychotherapeutic approach called Integrated Offender Management and
began
setting
up
an
intricate
system
to
rehabilitate
the
nation’s criminals.
First of all came a computerised management system that set up
the models upon which IOM would operate.
Completed in 1999, training and publicity for IOM then started,
and this was completed in 2002.
The basic idea of IOM is that all prisoners are classified on
reception into security and treatment categories.
A sentence plan is designed and those identified as suitable
for
interventions
are
directed
to
programs
consistent
with
their ‘criminogenic needs’.
It
was
expected
that
by
this
method,
inmates
exposed
to
interventions could have their chances of re-offending reduced
by 10%-15% over 2 years:
- which represents a 1/4 to 1/3 improvement in overall
correctional efficiency.
As it happened, IOM has never been applied according to plan,
and national recidivist rates have not fallen.
The principal problems seem to be that:
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
IOMS
and
procedures
associated
with
IOM,
such
as
constructing a sentence management plan, are complicated and
time consuming, and are not fully understood by staff. This
leads to a large number of errors and omissions in data
entry and assessment information.

Approximately 1/3 of computerised assessments are overridden
by staff because they think the assessments are wrong. This
results
in
inmates
being
given
treatment
that
is
inconsistent with their identified needs.

Where
assessment
data
are
available
and
adhered
to,
resources seldom exist to address the needs identified.
But the problems don’t end there.
Even
when
the
correct
individual
programs
are
applied,
results are discouraging.
A recent controlled study on program effectiveness has found
that few of the department’s programs had any effect on
recidivism.
In some cases (eg straight thinking), the recidivism rates of
those
exposed
to
programs
was
worse
than
those
who
got
nothing.
This is exactly what I predicted would happen when the IOM
concept was explained to me by CE Corrections in 2002.
So it looks to me as if IOM is destined to join the other
failed
experiments
that
have
8
littered
NZ’s
correctional
history since the beginning of the 20th Century.
Already the term ‘IOM’ is being replaced by a new slogan
called ‘Effective Interventions’.
Why Do Criminals Reoffend?
So why do criminals reoffend?
A recent government study on the correlates of reoffending has
found
that
that
length
of
sentence
and
sentence
type,
are
relatively poor predictors of reoffending.
The most accurate predictor is age, with 95% of those <20
reoffending, compared with 53% of those >40.
Other important predictors are:
previous convictions, sex, and ethnicity [
].
In other words, the likelihood of reoffending has very little
to do with sentencing practice or strategy, and mainly involves
things we can't change.
Why Do Corrections Fail?
This begs the question, of course:
Why do corrections fail?
Why can't we seem to do anything?
Human Rationality
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Well part of the explanation lies at the heart of the human
condition itself.
The C.18 Rationalists who dreamed up the prison, believed that
human beings are logical.
They seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Reward people and you encourage them; punish them, you deter
them.
Thus, they reasoned, prisons should stop crime.
There
are
2
major
and
related
flaws
with
this
type
of
reasoning:
1. Not all offenders get caught and punished.
In many cases, in fact, the chances of getting captured are
slim.
Thus, many criminal acts are more likely to be rewarded than
punished.
EG. Drug dealing, burglary and W/C crime are all low-risk
activities, with chances of reward far outweighing chances
of punishment.
In these cases, especially if the alternative is a boring, low
paid, low prestige job, or no job at all, crime may be a
rational choice.
Conforming
to
the
law
in
this
illogical.
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context,
could
be
seen
as
2. Behaving logically isn't really a common human trait anyhow.
People often behave irrationally.
A lot of the time, people are driven not by logic but by things
like whim, emotion, and urgent desire.
Crucial
life
choices
are
made
while
people
are
under
the
influence of:
drugs, alcohol, anger, hatred, love or lust.
If people were truly rational, they'd all believe in the same
God, or none at all.
They wouldn't endanger their lives and pay exorbitant taxes by
smoking cigarettes.
They wouldn't risk life and limb volunteering to fight for
abstract ideals like duty, justice or patriotism.
And
they
would
certainly
not
make
that
most
catastrophic
blunder of all getting married and having kids.
[Thus marking the end of a perfectly good sex life].
Threat of physical or emotional harm, especially in a young
person, is a very weak deterrent.
On the contrary, high risk and the thrill associated with it is
what drives a lot of people toward certain activities.
If sports like mountain climbing, base jumping, white water
kayaking,
and
bronco
riding
didn't
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have
adrenaline-pumping,
life threatening risks attached to them,
who would be interested?
Why would kids go screaming down the street at 100kph if it
wasn't dangerous?
Because they love the danger.
So it is with crime.
Many career criminals are drawn to their offending as much by
the available profits as by the sheer thrill of the whole
thing.
There is a euphoric appeal to a lot of crime, which transcends
morality and logic.
Like mountaineers and speedway racers,
many criminals do what they do because they get a big kick out
of it.
They
commit
high-risk
offences
because
they
love
the
exhilaration of the act and the escape, and the kudos they get
from their friends afterwards.
Career
criminals
are
no
more
deterred
by
the
fear
of
imprisonment than the rally driver is deterred by injury, the
surfer by drowning, or the climber by the fear of avalanche,
falling, or frostbite.
Those elements add to the appeal, they don't detract from it.
Socialisation
Now I'm going to talk about socialisation.
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There
is
a
group
of
criminologists
called
Social
Control
Theorists, who argue that one reason why criminals offend is
that they are under socialised and as a consequence, they have
weak social bonds.
Hence, they don't feel ashamed of the crimes they commit.
Putting aside the obvious circularity of the argument, there’s
little evidence that criminals are under-socialised anyway.
The grand old criminologist, Edwin Sutherland used to say,
"There is no such thing as an 'incompletely socialised'
individual".
He said that everybody gets socialised fairly equally, it's
just that different people get socialised in different ways.
So if you're brought up in a criminal subculture, you'll learn
criminal values.
And in the criminal world, an ability to steal cleverly, con
plausibly, and fight bravely, may add to, rather than detract
from, your social value.
When
you
send
someone
to
prison
for
"correction",
you're
actually immersing them into a culture where these values are
powerful and likely to be reinforced.
However some inmates really do want to change and one of the
goals of a prison rehabilitation program is to assist in that
objective.
But no matter how hard a person works on reformative programs,
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achieving long-term change is always difficult.
The
countervailing
effect of prison culture, set against a
background of lifelong exposure to criminal values and role
models, is bad enough.
But the difficulty is even greater than that.
There's an old Jesuit saying that goes:
"Give me a boy of 7 years, and I'll show you the man".
That is, by the time a kid is 7 years old, his personality,
intellect and development potential are pretty well set.
By the time a person first comes to prison, they are normally
17
years
or
older
and
may
have
experienced
a
lifetime
of
unemployed, alcoholic, and violent role models, often combined
with chronic parental abuse and neglect.
Prison
censuses
have
found
that
an
extraordinarily
high
proportion of inmates come from dysfunctional families of this
type.
Not all people with bad family backgrounds become criminal and
not all criminals have bad family backgrounds,
but such factors are still highly predictive of criminality in
later life.
Turning
such
deep-seated
problems
around
environment of a prison is a pretty big ask.
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in
the
artificial
British criminologist Barbara Wooton used to say that in order
to really have a chance of changing someone, you'd have to
marry them.
If
you’ve
ever
been
married
you
might
think
that’s
pretty
hopeful too:
the things that annoyed you about someone when you got
married are still likely to brass you off in 10 years'
time.
The Reality of Life Outside
An added burden to changing people while they are inside is the
harsh reality of life outside.
It may be all very well, using programs, to get a commitment
from inmates to give up a life of crime.
In the sterile environment of a prison, such resolutions can be
made with total sincerity and commitment.
But on the outside, things are different.
Here, there is the problem of peer pressure, with the added
temptations of consumer advertising, alcohol, drugs and women.
And of course, food has to be bought and bills have to be paid.
So when a person who has "reformed" in prison is cast back into
the
impoverished,
gang-dominated,
drink-
and
drug-infested
world that they came from, resolutions made in another world at
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another time, can easily disappear.
When I was in prison, there were many young, middle class kids
like me, who copped long laggings for selling drugs.
Having a lot of bourgeois kids in prison was a new thing in the
1970s, but in jail we weren't much different from the others.
Prison
- the great leveller homogenised
us
so
that
after
a
few
years
we
were
indistiguishable from the other men in maximum security.
We talked the same way, we thought the same way, we identified
with one another.
The middle class inmates tended to get more visits and we
tended to study and do hobbies instead of sitting around all
day, gambling or talking or listening to music.
But we still got drunk, we still got stoned, we still joined
any strikes and protests (in fact we often led them).
But we didn't do these things all the time.
In prison, everybody talks about how this lag is going to be
their last.
Everybody has big plans for when they got out.
When I was inside, the difference with inmates from the middle
classes was that we didn't just dream about these things, we
took serious steps to bring them about.
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That showed after we got out.
Almost without exception, the middle class inmates moved into
the workforce and today the majority I know are successful,
ordinary people with jobs, wives and families.
The men from unstable backgrounds, who already had adolescent
histories of violence, drunkenness and criminality,
- many of them intelligent men who I’m still good friends
with today -
are doing what they’ve always done:
Living unpredictable, hedonistic lives, surviving day-today
on
the
money
they
hustle
through
drugs,
theft,
gambling, or pulling rorts.
And they like the way they are.
The Allure of Prison
For people like this, prison is an occupational hazard which
they accept because apart from their freedom,
they lose relatively little by going to jail:
no
career,
no
reputation,
no
mortgage,
and
marriage.
Recidivists don't enjoy jail
- ask them and they'll tell you they hate it.
But they're used to it and they readjust quickly.
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often
no
Back in prison the career criminal will have lots of friends
and he’ll move straight into one of the respectable cliques.
The senior screws and inmates will look after their old china
plate and give him immediate access to the perks of the prison:
a good job, a nice cell, pressed clothes, and smoke or a
brew on Saturday night.
For the old boobhead, the Pains of Imprisonment will be nowhere
near as sharp as they are for the first-timer.
So prison can offer a number of attractions:
Friendship and status within a tightly-knit primary group.
Predictability,
physical
comfort,
and
freedom
from
the
many stresses of daily life:
* 3 Meals a day.
* No dishes or laundry to worry about.
* Free clothing, free electricity, hot showers.
* There are no bills to pay, no landlords to avoid, no
long hours of work, no nagging wife and no screaming kids.
* If an inmate has a job, he can take it as easy as he
likes, and there’s plenty of free time:
Time
to
socialise,
read,
watch
TV,
do
crossword
puzzles, play cards, do hobbies, exercise, play pool,
attend a group, or just lie down for a moe.
I don't know anyone who would exchange a life of liberty for
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one in the slammer.
But for men and women with long histories of incarceration,
who sometimes go without food in their bellies or a roof over
their heads,
jail has a number of compensations.
Conclusion
So the pressures that draw convicted criminals back into prison
are complex but strong.
One of the problems with people who set out to devise "reform"
programs for criminals
is that they seldom have much idea about their client group,
and they underestimate their task.
To truly have a chance of success, a correctionalist has to
defeat multiple opponents:
The allure of hazardous excitement, that criminal activity
can provide.
The appeal of:
easy money, social standing, a carefree lifestyle, access
to drugs, and the pretty young women who are drawn to men
who they see as exciting, heroic, and strong.
They have to overcome a background of childhood instability,
abuse, neglect, and hedonistic role models, which have become
internalised at an early age, and which are almost impossible
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to alter in an adult.
And
finally,
there's
the
tough
reality
of
the
life
of
an
unskilled Joe Lunchbox:
- the drudgery of menial work, the miserable wages, the
low prestige, the lack of leisure time, the endless bills.
From the day he gets out, old criminal associations will beckon
and particularly when caution is clouded by alcohol, or by a
crisis
such
as
a
relationship
breakdown,
the
pull
of
this
fellowship can be magnetic.
It might not happen immediately, but sooner or later, most
crims are drawn back.
They start associating with their old mates and soon they start
getting up to their old tricks.
When that happens, they’re back on the trail to jail,
Which is why rehabilitating criminals isn’t that easy.
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