A self fulfilling prophecy?
Are we setting up our prison population to fail.? Government figures suggest not....According to the Ministry of Justice, the prison population has been relatively stable for the past 5 years. This differs to the increasing population trend that was observed between the 1950's and early 2000's.
Lets take a look as some figures
84, 307 prisoners in England and Wales as at December 2016
35, 842 admissions of which 21 732 were first receptions into prison.
5,584 offenders were recalled to prison in the last quarter.
Well ......according to those figures, I can see that with a little translation they read as follows:
In 2016, 14, 110 repeat offenders were admitted to prison and 5, 584 offenders on were recalled to prison for breaching their licence requirements.
In lay mans terms what these figures tell us is that last year 19 694 former inmates were returned behind bars. so whats not working? Why are we seeing this Recidivism?
According to good ole Wikepedia recidivism is " the act of a person repeating an undesireable behaviour after they had either experienced negative consequences of that behaviour, or had been trained to extinguish that behaviour. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are re arrested for a similar offence.
The term is frequently used in conjunction with criminal behaviour and substance abuse. (Recidivism is a synonym for relapse which is more commonly used in medicine and in the disease model of addiction. For example, scientific literature may refer to the recidivism of sexual offenders, meaning the frequency with which they are detected or apprehended committing additional sexual crimes after being released from prison for similar crimes".
Its not all bad but let me assure its far from rosy. SO what are we doing about it?
Well, the Ministry of Justice has introduced offender management programmes working side by side with probation. Prisoners are enrolled on accredited programmes. A series of activities aimed at working with offenders to reduce re offending. Everything looks great on paper....... and yet we're still seeing repeat offenders returned to prison......WHY??????
Take a look at this short Prezi presentation, review what we're doing right and what we could be doing better.
Prezi Presentation - Why is offender management failing in the UK
As I see it, there are two problem areas..... outsourcing probation to private companies was the first error. Companies care only about profit margin and not of the offender. In a climate where sectors are asked to do more for less this is a recipe for disaster. The probation service is on its knees, officers are unable to keep on top of the ever growing case loads!
Second problem area is the length of sentence passed by the Magistrates courts. They are limited and the repeat offenders are often dealt days or weeks in prison. This term is not long enough to enrol on suitable rehabilitation and detox programmes. Prisoners are released back into the community having served only have their term, usually without a fixed abode, clinging on to their addictions and without prospects. The probation are indeed there to assist but with their heavy burden are unable to offer the real support that these individuals need. Thus without the support its only a matter of time before we see a self fulfilling prophecy - the offender offends again, stealing to feed a habit or breaching their order.
For now the status quo will remain....... however I do hope that somewhere down the line we will adopt the Norwegian way.
Moving away from the judicial system and its failings, and on to the review of Prezi. You saw a short presentation that I put together to further explain why prisoners are on the hamster wheel of the penal system. I was a Prezi virgin, untapped territory. Truth be told I'm a card carrying ECDL member, ensconced in all things microsoft. My weapon of choice has always been good old power point....... but let me tell you ..... the tide is turning.
Lets take a look as some figures
84, 307 prisoners in England and Wales as at December 2016
35, 842 admissions of which 21 732 were first receptions into prison.
5,584 offenders were recalled to prison in the last quarter.
Well ......according to those figures, I can see that with a little translation they read as follows:
In 2016, 14, 110 repeat offenders were admitted to prison and 5, 584 offenders on were recalled to prison for breaching their licence requirements.
In lay mans terms what these figures tell us is that last year 19 694 former inmates were returned behind bars. so whats not working? Why are we seeing this Recidivism?
According to good ole Wikepedia recidivism is " the act of a person repeating an undesireable behaviour after they had either experienced negative consequences of that behaviour, or had been trained to extinguish that behaviour. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are re arrested for a similar offence.
The term is frequently used in conjunction with criminal behaviour and substance abuse. (Recidivism is a synonym for relapse which is more commonly used in medicine and in the disease model of addiction. For example, scientific literature may refer to the recidivism of sexual offenders, meaning the frequency with which they are detected or apprehended committing additional sexual crimes after being released from prison for similar crimes".
Its not all bad but let me assure its far from rosy. SO what are we doing about it?
Well, the Ministry of Justice has introduced offender management programmes working side by side with probation. Prisoners are enrolled on accredited programmes. A series of activities aimed at working with offenders to reduce re offending. Everything looks great on paper....... and yet we're still seeing repeat offenders returned to prison......WHY??????
Take a look at this short Prezi presentation, review what we're doing right and what we could be doing better.
Prezi Presentation - Why is offender management failing in the UK
As I see it, there are two problem areas..... outsourcing probation to private companies was the first error. Companies care only about profit margin and not of the offender. In a climate where sectors are asked to do more for less this is a recipe for disaster. The probation service is on its knees, officers are unable to keep on top of the ever growing case loads!
Second problem area is the length of sentence passed by the Magistrates courts. They are limited and the repeat offenders are often dealt days or weeks in prison. This term is not long enough to enrol on suitable rehabilitation and detox programmes. Prisoners are released back into the community having served only have their term, usually without a fixed abode, clinging on to their addictions and without prospects. The probation are indeed there to assist but with their heavy burden are unable to offer the real support that these individuals need. Thus without the support its only a matter of time before we see a self fulfilling prophecy - the offender offends again, stealing to feed a habit or breaching their order.
For now the status quo will remain....... however I do hope that somewhere down the line we will adopt the Norwegian way.
Moving away from the judicial system and its failings, and on to the review of Prezi. You saw a short presentation that I put together to further explain why prisoners are on the hamster wheel of the penal system. I was a Prezi virgin, untapped territory. Truth be told I'm a card carrying ECDL member, ensconced in all things microsoft. My weapon of choice has always been good old power point....... but let me tell you ..... the tide is turning.
Wikipedia tells us that Prezi is a visual storytelling software alternative to traditional slide based presentation formats. Prezi presentation feature a map like, schematic overview that lets users pan between topics at will, zoom in on desired details and pull back to reveal context.
This freedom of movement enables "converational presenting" a new presentation style in which presentations follow the flow of the dialogue.
That's all very positive and certainly Prezi is easy to use, simple to create, lively graphics, rich presentations - however does one size fit all?
Prezi is certainly not your tool of choice if your presenting budgets or structured data? However it's ideal for waking up your audience and breathing fresh air into the classroom, its exciting and intriguing, creating informal, unstructured or creating material.
Lets review Prezi further. Its available in 4 tiers:-
Public - Free
Enjoy - £59.04
Pro - £159
Pro Plus - £240
The free account if you haven't guessed yet, has one major draw back....all the presentations you create are viewable, searchable and useable by the public! Forget about copwrites!!
Collaboration akin to Google slides is an option with up to 10 collaborators being able to work simultaenously on a presentation, however, it does lack the text box feature, you would need to pick up the phone to actually to discuss changes and what you're doing.
Prezi has really been something a little different. But, if overused, I imagine the presentations and zooming in an out could become a little tiresome. For now however as long as I'm presenting anything other than facts and figures prezi is my software of choice.
Take a look at how its really done, Had we splashed some cash (upgraded to Pro Plus) and invested a little more time ...... here's what we could of done!
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