Integrated Offender Management: Assessing the Impact and Benefits - Holy Grail or Fool's Errand?
Author | Kevin Wong |
Pages | 59-216 |
59
INTEGRATED OFFENDER MANAGEMENT: ASSESSING
THE IMPACT AND BENEFITS - HOLY GRAIL OR FOOL'S
ERRAND?
Kevin Wong, Deputy Director of the Hallam Centre for Community Justice, Sheffield Hallam
University
Abstract
The development of Integrated Offend er Management (IOM) approaches have sprea d
rapidly across England and Wales since 2009 when IOM was acknowledged by
Government through the Home Office policy statement. The MoJ commissioned process
evaluation of the five IOM pioneer sites (Senior et al 2011) found that assessing the
impact and benefits of IOM was difficult given the de finitional issues of IOM and problems
in identifying additionality. To date, this remains a challenge for local agencies, despite
attempts to facilitate this, such as the IOM efficiency toolkit (Home Office and MoJ 2011).
This paper will examine the challenges and limitations of the methodologie s employed
and will identify what lessons can be learn ed for evaluating other criminal justice
initiatives such as Payment by Results schemes where definitions of interventions and
additionality may be difficult to determine.
Keywords
Integrated offender manage ment; impact evaluation; cost b enefit analysis; Transforming
Rehabilitation; Justice Reinves tment; Payment by Results
British Journal of Community Justice
©2013 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 11(2-3): 59-81
Wong
60
Introduction
Evidencing the impact and financial benefits of Integrated Offender Management (IOM)
has been a challenge for Government and loca l agencies ever since IOM was recognised by
the Government through Home Office guidance in 2 009. IOM came to prominence when
reductions in public finance commenced due to the economic crisis a year earlier. Given
its widespread adoption across England and Wales, e videncing the impact and cost
effectiveness of IOM has become the holy grail for lo cal agencies and Government. It is
particularly pertinent at this moment in England and Wales. The co ntinuation of IOM at a
local level is potentially under threat from the Govern ment’s Transforming Reh abilitation
strategy (Ministry of Justice 2013a). It is perhaps ironic that IOM approaches based on the
principle of more effectively joining up pro vision (Senior et al 2011) may potentially be
dismantled by the fragmentation of community based offend er management services as
envisaged by Transforming R ehabilitation. The MoJ strategy sets out a division between
the management of high risk offenders by public probation services an d the marketization
of services to manage low to medium risk offend ers by private, voluntary sector and
mutual organisations commissioned by Payment by Results (PbR).
This article will commence with a b rief history of IOM. It will then define IOM and
consider: the challenges of assessing the additionality of I OM, i.e. what changes to process
and interventions have occurred as a result of IOM; the methodologies used to evaluate
the impact of IOM and their limitations; the implications of this for the evaluation of IOM
and other criminal justice services followin g the implementation of Transformi ng
Rehabilitation; and will consider the risks for IOM arising from th e implementation of
Transforming Rehabilitation.
A brief history of IOM
Senior et al (2011) noted that IOM was (at the time of writing the report) the most
developed attempt to operationalize the concept of end to end off ender management
conceptualised in the ASPIRE model (Grapes et al 2006) produced by the National
Offender Management Servi ce (NOMS).
“At its best an IOM approach aimed to co-ordinate all relevant agenci es to
deliver interventions for offenders identified as warranting intensive
engagement, whatever their statutory status. It also sought to ensure, by
support and disruption (of potential further offending), the continued
commitment by offenders to engage in interventions offered with the
express purpose of reducing further offending.” (Senior et al 2011: i)
IOM sought to replicate for targeted groups of adult offenders what had b een mandated
for youth justice, through the establishment of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) by the
services, police, probation, health and voluntary and community sector agencies (VCS).
Teams were co-located and provided mul ti-agency case management of young offender s.
The development of IOM at the pioneer sites (Senior et al 2011) was info rmed by:
resettlement strategies to impro ve and co-ordinate provision for short ter m sentenced
prisoners (under 12 months) released from custody; criticisms of the silo mentality
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