Findings 226. Understanding What Works: accredited cognitive skills p rogrammes for adult men and young off e n d e r s

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1 The Research, Development and Statistics Directorate exists to improve policy making, decision taking and practice in support of the Home Office purpose and aims, to provide the public and Parliament with inform a t i o n necessary for informed debate and to publish information for future use. Findings are produced by the Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. For further copies contact: Communication Development Unit Room 264, Home Office, 50 Queen Anne s Gate, London SW1H 9AT. Tel: Fax: p u b l i c a t i o n s. rd h o m e o ff i c e. g s i. g o v. u k Understanding What Works: accredited cognitive skills p rogrammes for adult men and young off e n d e r s Jenny Cann, Louise Falshaw, Francis Nugent and Caroline Friendship The effectiveness of the prison-based cognitive skills programmes Enhanced Thinking Skills and Reasoning and Rehabilitation were assessed for two separate samples: adult men and young offenders. One- and two-year reconviction rates for programme participants were compared to matched groups who had not participated in the programmes. Factors which explain the findings are discussed, including offender motivation, duration of programme impact and programme targeting. Key points T h e re were no diff e rences in the one- and two-year reconviction rates between adult men who s t a rted a prison-based cognitive skills programme and their matched comparison gro u p. T h e re were no diff e rences in the one- and two-year reconviction rates between young o ffenders who started a prison-based cognitive skills programme and their matched comparison gro u p. These results are in contrast to the first evaluation study of adult male programme participants, where a reduction in reconviction was shown, but are similar to the last evaluation which also showed no reduction in reconviction for programme participants. When programme dropouts were excluded, however, the one-year reconviction rate for both adult men and young offender programme completers was significantly lower than for the matched comparison groups. This represents a 2.5 percentage point difference in reconviction for the adult male programme completers (not seen in the last evaluation) and a 4.1 percentage point difference for the young offender programme completers. These differences in reconviction at one year were not maintained at two years following release from prison. Crown copyright 2003 ISSN Printed by: TABS Cognitive skills programmes were introduced in HM Prison Service (England and Wales) during the early 1990s. The Reasoning and Rehabilitation programme was introduced in 1992 (Porporino and Fabiano, 2000) and Thinking Skills, later known as Enhanced Thinking Skills, in 1993 (Clark, 2000). These programmes are referred to as thinking skills programmes and their premise is that how offenders think, including how they reason and solve problems, is an important factor in their criminal behaviour. Cognitive skills programmes aim to teach offenders the process of consequential thinking in order to avoid patterns of thinking which lead them to offend. Adult male offenders To date, Home Office re s e a rch evaluating the success of cognitive skills programmes in reducing reconviction has been based on samples of adult male prisoners and they have pro d u c e d mixed results. The current study is the third evaluation conducted by the Researc h, Development and Statistics Directorate in re l a t i o n to adult men. The first evaluation of cognitive skills p rogrammes (Friendship et al., 2002) assessed p rogrammes prior to accreditation and found that p a rticipation produced a significant reduction in reconviction of up to 14 percentage points. The views expressed in these findings are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Home Office (nor do they reflect Government policy)

2 2 A c c reditation aims to ensure the quality of both content and d e l i v e ry of interventions. An expert, independent panel was set up in 1996 to take responsibility for this. Formerly the Joint Prison/Probation Accreditation Panel (2002), it is now known as the Correctional Services Accreditation Panel (CSAP). The second evaluation (Falshaw et al., 2003) assessed accredited programmes and found no diff e rence in the reconviction rate between programme participants and a matched comparison group. International experience has m i rro red these variable reductions in reconviction. For example, see Bonta (2002). Male young offenders A number of studies have shown that cognitive skills programmes reduce the subsequent rates of offending in young offenders. Lipsey (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of almost 400 comparison group studies of the effectiveness of programmes for delinquency (prison and community-based) on offenders aged between 12 and 21 years. This yielded a 10% overall reduction in recidivism. The effectiveness of programmes specifically incorporating a cognitive component with young offenders has also been demonstrated internationally. For example, Izzo and Ross (1990) analysed 46 juvenile offender studies and found that these programmes were twice as effective as those which did not incorporate a cognitive element. Cognitive-behavioural programmes for young off e n d e r s have not been expressly evaluated in England and Wa l e s. H o w e v e r, the impact of two intensive custodial re g i m e s developed for young offenders was assessed in a high intensity training centre and a military training style establishment (Farrington et al., 2002). The form e r combined military elements with a rehabilitative regime and was successful in reducing reconviction, whereas the pure l y m i l i t a ry regime did not. This success has been put down to, amongst other things, the inclusion within the regime of cognitive-behavioural offending behaviour pro g r a m m e s. The current study forms the first evaluation of cognitive skills programmes for young offenders in prison in England and Wales. The current samples Adult males The sample comprised 2,195 adult male offenders who had participated in one of two accredited, prison-based cognitive skills programmes between 1998 and The different programmes were Enhanced Thinking Skills (ETS) and Reasoning and Rehabilitation (R&R). Participants who started the programme but did not complete were also included (9% of sample). Programme participants had not been involved in previous evaluation studies and had been released from prison between 1998 and Young offenders The sample comprised 1,534 young offenders (i.e. offenders aged 21 years or less at sentencing) who had participated in either R&R or ETS between 1995 and Only three offenders had participated in programmes prior to accreditation and all offenders had been released from prison between 1996 and Comparison offenders The two matched comparison groups consisted of 2,195 adult male offenders and 1,534 young offenders who had not participated in a cognitive skills programme during their custodial sentence. Comparison group offenders were matched to programme participants on a small number of static risk factors only (see the Methodological note for matching details). All programme participants and their matched comparison groups had received a custodial sentence of six months or more (but less than life) and had been released from prison for at least one year. Assessing reconviction Conviction data was obtained for all offenders from the O ffenders Index, a Home Office database. One- and twoyear reconviction rates (by risk of reconviction) were calculated for the programme participants and comparison g roups. Risk was assessed using the revised Offender Gro u p Reconviction Scale (OGRS) see the Methodological note. Expected reconviction rates Two-year expected reconviction rates were generated for the sample using the average OGRS score for offenders in each risk group. These illustrate the accurate match between the programme starters and the comparison groups in terms of risk of reconviction (Tables 1 and 2). Previous research (Friendship et al., 2002; Falshaw et al., Table 1 Expected two-year reconviction rates for adult male programme starters and Risk level P rogramme start e r s Comparison gro u p ( O G R S ) Expected reconviction rates n % n % L o w M e d i u m - l o w M e d i u m - h i g h H i g h O v e r a l l 2, , Table 2 Expected two-year reconviction rates for young offender programme starters and Risk level P rogramme start e r s Comparison gro u p n % n % M e d i u m - l o w M e d i u m - h i g h H i g h O v e r a l l 1, ,

3 Table 3 One-year reconviction rates for adult male programme completers and Risk level P rogramme completers Comparison gro u p L o w 4 ( ) ( ) 2. 6 M e d i u m - l o w 4 5 ( ) ( ) 7. 5 M e d i u m - h i g h ( ) ( ) H i g h ( ) ( ) O v e r a l l ( 1, ) ( 1, ) Table 4 One-year reconviction rates for young offender programme completers and Risk level P rogramme completers Comparison gro u p M e d i u m - l o w 8 ( ) ( ) 9. 4 M e d i u m - h i g h 8 0 ( ) ( ) H i g h ( ) ( ) O v e r a l l ( 1, ) ( 1, ) ), suggests that the OGRS over-predicts risk of reconviction in prison populations. This means it is possible to produce a percentage point reduction between expected and observed reconviction rates in the absence of any intervention. For this reason, this study only uses OGRS as a tool to control for risk levels between programme participants and comparison groups. Programme impact Programme starters When all programme starters were included in the analysis, there were no statistically significant differences in reconviction at one or two years between adult men or the young offenders and their comparison groups. Programme completers (dropouts excluded) One-year reconviction rates for programme completers and their matched comparison groups are shown in Table 3 for adult males and Table 4 for young offenders. For the adult males, there was a statistically significant difference in overall reconviction between the completers and the comparison group. The reconviction rate of the completers was 2.5 percentage points lower than the comparison g roup, i.e., programme completion led to a 2.5 percentage point reduction in reconviction. High risk programme completers also had a statistically significant Table 5 Overall one-year reconviction rates for adult male programme starters, completers, d ropouts and matched comparison gro u p s S a m p l e P rogramme part i c i p a n t s Comparison gro u p Reconviction rates s t a rt e r s 397 ( 2, 195 ) ( 2, 195 ) c o m p l e t e r s 339 ( 1, 993 ) ( 1, 993 ) d ro p o u t s 58 ( 202 ) ( 202 ) lower rate of reconviction (a 6.9 percentage point difference). The low and medium-high risk completers showed lower reconviction rates than their matched comparison group but these diff e rences were not significant. There was a similar pattern for young o ffenders, with an overall statistically significant p e rcentage point diff e rence in reconviction of 4.1 p e rcentage points for programme completers and a d i ff e rence of 4.8 percentage points for high risk completers. The medium-low and medium-high risk completers showed lower reconviction rates than their matched comparison group but these differences were not statistically significant. This lower rate of reconviction for programme completers at one year was not maintained at two years, where there were no statistically significant differences in reconviction between the adult male or young offender completers and their comparison groups. Programme dropouts The rate of reconviction for programme dropouts was higher than the rate for the matched comparison group for both samples (Tables 5 and 6). For the young offenders, this difference was statistically significant. Table 6 Overall one-year reconviction rates for young offender programme start e r s, completers, dropouts and matched comparison gro u p s S a m p l e P rogramme part i c i p a n t s Comparison gro u p Reconviction rates s t a rt e r s 516 (1,534) (1,534) 35.5 Programme completers 412 (1,314) (1,314) 35.5 d ro p o u t s 104 (220) (220)

4 Table 7 One-year reconviction rates for ETS adult male programme completers and Risk level P rogramme completers Comparison gro u p Further analysis ETS and R&R were examined separately to determine any difference in programme impact. ETS programme impact The ETS programme was developed specifically for the prison population in England and Wales. It consists of 22 two-hour sessions and is targeted at medium risk offenders. The main findings were: There were no differences in the one- and two-year reconviction rates between adult men and young o ffenders who started ETS and their matched comparison groups. H o w e v e r, the one-year reconviction rate for p rogramme completers (i.e. when dropouts were excluded) was lower for both the adult men and young o ffenders and this diff e rence was statistically significant ( Tables 7 and 8). This re p resents an overall reduction in reconviction of 2.6 percentage points for adult male completers (7 percentage point diff e rence for high risk o ffenders) and 3.6 percentage points for young o ffender completers. These diff e rences in reconviction at one year were not maintained at two years following release from prison. R&R programme impact The R&R programme was developed in North America. It consists of 38, two-hour sessions and is targeted at high risk o ffenders. No statistically significant diff e rences were found between the adult men or young offenders and comparison g roups for the R&R programme at one or two years. Discussion of findings L o w 4 (393) (393) 2.3 M e d i u m - l o w 39 (466) (466) 8.2 M e d i u m - h i g h 107 (526) (526) 23.6 H i g h 143 (340) (340) 49.1 O v e r a l l 293 (1,725) (1,725) 19.6 This study was limited by the fact that the comparison groups were matched to the programme participants on a small number of static demographic and criminal history risk factors only. There may be differences between the p rogramme participants and comparison groups in dynamic risk factors, such as cognitive deficits and motivation to change, but this data was not available for Table 8 One-year reconviction rates for ETS young offender programme completers and Risk level Treatment gro u p Comparison gro u p the comparison groups. Other dynamic risk factors relevant on release from prison were not recorded for either programme participants or comparison groups e.g. participation in probation programmes, employment and drug use. This study also relied on official recorded conviction data which is only a proxy measure of reoffending (Lloyd, Mair and Hough, 1994). Programme completion Young offenders and adult male programme completers showed a statistically significant lower rate of reconviction at one year than the comparison groups. This suggests that attending a cognitive skills programme can have an impact on reconviction, provided offenders actually complete the programme. 220 of the young offenders (14%) and 202 of the adult males (9%) failed to complete a programme and a substantial proportion of these offenders dropped out through their own choice. The reconviction rate of the dropouts alone was higher than that of their matched comparison groups and that of treatment start e r s / completers in both samples at one year, and a similar pattern has been observed elsewhere. For example, the largest evaluation of R&R to date, carried out on Canadian offenders (Robinson, 1995), found that dropouts had a higher reconviction rate than both programme completers and their comparison groups. Motivation of dropouts to change their offending behaviour may be a key issue. Emerging findings from a qualitative evaluation of prison-based cognitive skills pro g r a m m e s indicate that not all offenders who start a programme are equally motivated to change. Canadian re s e a rch has shown that poor motivation is the main reason for p rogramme dropout (Stewart and Millson, 1994). A large proportion of dropouts were high risk offenders and it may be argued that a high proportion of such offenders may also have high levels of psychopathy, a factor which has also been associated with programme dropout (Attrill, Harris and Blud, 2003). Duration of programme impact M e d i u m - l o w 6 (137) (137) 9.5 M e d i u m - h i g h 64 (333) (333) 21.0 H i g h 256 (568) (568) 49.3 O v e r a l l 326 (1,038) (1,038) 35.0 Programme completers had a significantly lower rate of reconviction at one year following release from custody but not at two years. This was true for both adult men and 4

5 Table 9 Level of risk for adult male studies of programme participants Risk level S t u d y ( O G R S ) I pre- II accredited III accredited accredited young offenders. It appears that impact in terms of reduced reconviction is limited to the short term and thus not sustained. Research in Canada found that the majority in a sample of cognitive skills programme graduates felt a booster programme in the community would be a positive initiative (Robinson, 1995). Furthermore, support comes from work in Western Australia (Worrall, 2003) where research into R&R delivered in prisons concluded that the programme should be offered as early as possible in an offender s sentence, ideally with some refresher course in preparation for release (i.e. a booster programme). This finding suggests that additional programme work with offenders may be needed to reduce offending in the longer term. A cognitive skills booster programme has been developed for use in custody and the community in England and Wales this move is endorsed by the CSAP. ETS and R&R programme impact % n % n % n L o w M e d i u m - l o w M e d i u m - h i g h H i g h To t a l ,195 This study showed that ETS had an impact on reconviction but R&R did not (although the sample size for R&R participants was smaller). ETS was designed specifically for use with the offender population in England and Wales, which may help to explain this finding. As ETS is a s h o rt e r p rogramme, (22 two-hour sessions rather than 38 for R&R) it may also be easier for offenders to re m a i n motivated for the duration of the programme. In support of this, the dropout rates for R&R were higher for the adult men (11.8%) and young offenders (25.2%) than they were for ETS (8.8% and 10.9 re s p e c t i v e l y ). Targeting of cognitive skills programmes for adult males Since programmes started in HM Prison Service, the proportion of adult male participants within each of the four OGRS risk groups has changed (Table 9). The proportion of high risk offenders has decreased over the three studies and the proportion of medium risk offenders increased. The proportion within the low risk g roup has also increased, peaking in the second evaluation. This suggests there may have been a shift in programme targeting over the course of the large-scale implementation of cognitive skills programmes, initially to lower risk offenders and more recently to medium risk offenders who are the intended target group. Future re s e a rch needs to be designed to give a better understanding of the link between the selection of offenders for programmes (or targeting) and programme impact. Programme expansion Cognitive skills programmes have greatly expanded since they began in the early 1990s and this may have c o m p romised the quality of programme delivery (Falshaw et al., 2003). This expansion is still occurring (Table 10). Other interventions It is not known to what extent comparison offenders in this study may have participated in interventions other than cognitive skills programmes (e.g. basic skills education and drugs programmes). This is important as participation in other programmes may have affected the results of this evaluation. For example, the matched comparison groups may have had lower reconviction rates due to the impact of other interventions. For the duration of this study, the Prison Service did not collect such information centrally on other interventions in which offenders may have participated. However, a new joint probation and Prison Service Offender Assessment System known as OASys (Howard, Clark and Garnham, 2003) has recently been introduced. It is anticipated this data system will provide an invaluable tool for evaluation research. In particular, it will provide systematic information about offenders during their time in prison or on community supervision. Understanding What Works The Prison Service is still in the process of understanding What Works with offenders and identifying those who would benefit the most from programme participation. The current programme of research includes: A qualitative evaluation of cognitive skills p rogrammes. This is expected to provide some information regarding the levels of dynamic need in programme participants e.g. motivation to change. This will help to identify relevant dynamic variables for comparison group matching. Table 10 Completion data for cognitive skills programmes E T S / R & R E T S / R & R ETS targ e t R&R targ e t 5 C o m p l e t i o n s 746 2,837 5,568 1,390 No. of prisons

6 This qualitative research will further understanding of key factors involved in the quality of programme delivery. The practicalities of matching a comparison group on dynamic risk factors will be facilitated by the rollout of OASys data. A study to examine treatment change in offenders who have participated in accredited cognitive skills programmes which has been approved. This aims to explore the relationship to treatment change and both static and dynamic risk factors. Conclusion This evaluation showed no diff e rences in the one- and twoyear reconviction rates between adult men and young o ffenders who started a prison-based cognitive skills p rogramme and their matched comparison groups. The oneyear reconviction rate for programme completers (i.e. when p rogramme dropouts were excluded) was statistically lower than the matched comparison group for both adult men and young offenders. This reduction in reconviction was not maintained at two years following release from prison. Methodological note This evaluation used a retrospective matching methodology to match adult male and young offender treatment participants to comparison offenders. A 1:1 match was made for each programme starter. This was done using five matching variables: risk of reconviction measured by the OGRS which was used to categorise offenders as low, medium-low, medium-high and high risk; ethnicity (white, black, Asian and other); sentence length (less than 12 months, 12 months to 2 years, 2 to 4 years and 4 years or more for young offenders, the adult males were matched using the same categories but included a 4 to 10 years group and 10 years or more); offence type (violent, sexual, acquisitive, drugs and other) and year of discharge (1998, 1999 and 2000 for adult males, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 for young offenders). Differences in reconviction rates were assessed using Chi-square Statistic. All significant differences are reported when p<0.05. References Attrill, G., Harris, D. and Blud, L. (2003). T h e Programme: An Intervention for Violent Psychopathic Offenders (Draft Theory Manual). HM Prison Service, Offending Behaviour Programmes Unit: Unpublished. Bonta, J. (2002). An overview of the What Works literature and its relevance to England and Wales. Home Office and National Probation Serv i c e. Presentation, 12 March 2002, Home Office, London. Clark, D. (2000). T h e o ry Manual for Enhanced Thinking Skills. Prepared for the Joint Prison Probation Service Accreditation Panel. Falshaw, L., Friendship, C., Travers, R. and Nugent, F. (2003). Searching for What Works : an evaluation of cognitive skills programmes. Home Office Research Findings No London: Home Office. Farrington, D.P., Ditchfield, J., Hancock, G., Howard, P., Joliffe, D., Livingstone, M.S. and Painter, K.A. (2002). Evaluation of two intensive regimes for young offenders. Home Office Research Study No London: Home Office. Friendship, C., Blud, L., Erikson, M. and Travers, R. (2002). An evaluation of cognitive behavioural treatment for prisoners. Home Office Research Findings No London: Home Office. Howard, P., Clark, D. and Garnham, N. (2003). An Evaluation and Validation of the Offender Assessment System (OASys). OASys Central Research Unit. Report to HM Prison Service and National Probation Service. Izzo, R.L. and Ross, R.R. (1990). Meta-analysis of rehabilitation programmes for juvenile delinquents: a brief re p o rt. Criminal Justice and Behaviour, 17, Joint Prison/Probation Accreditation Panel (2002). What Works: Third re p o rt from the joint p r i s o n / p robation accreditation panel, London: The Brightside Partnership. Lipsey, M.W. (1992). The effect of treatment on juvenile delinquents: Results from meta-analysis. In Losel, F. Bender, D. and Bliesener, T. (Eds). Psychology and Law: International Perspectives pp Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Lloyd, C., Mair, G. and Hough, M. (1994). Explaining reconviction rates: A critical analysis. Home Office Research Study No London: Home Office. Porporino, F.J. and Fabiano, E.A. (2000). Theory manual for reasoning and rehabilitation. Prepared for the Joint Prison Probation Service Accreditation Panel. Robinson, D. (1995). The impact of cognitive skills on training on post release recidivism among Canadian federal off e n d e r s. No. R 41 Research Branch. Ottawa: C o rrectional Service Canada. S t e w a rt, L. and Millson, W.A. (1994). Off e n d e r motivation for treatment as a responsivity factor. F o ru m of Correctional Research, Vol. 7, 5 7. Wo rrall, A. (2003). Cognitive Skills Programs in We s t e rn Australian Prisons. A Discussion Paper. Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services, Government of We s t e rn Australia. 6 Jenny Cann is a Research Officer and Caroline Friendship a Principal Research Officer with the Offending and Criminal Justice Group (What Works) within the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. Louise Falshaw is Head of Research and Development in HM Inspectorate of Prisons and Francis Nugent a Research Officer in Offending Behaviour Programmes Unit, HM Prison Service. The authors would like to thank Michael Gossop, National Addiction Centre, and Mary McMurran, University of Cardiff, who peer-reviewed this Findings.