The Good Lives Model of Offender Rehabilitation: Recent Developments and Challenges

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The Good Lives Model of Offender Rehabilitation
Recent Developments and Challenges

• Stuart Allardyce
• National Youth Justice Development Team

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The Good Life?
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• The Good Life Model (GLM)
• Risks Needs and Responsivity (RNR)

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Tony Ward
Don Andrews
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Models in practice

• LS-CMI (Level of Service Case Management
  Inventory)
• YLS-CMI
• Good Lives Programme replacing CSOGP and SOTP

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RNR Model

• Nothing Works to What Works
• Risk matching offender risk level to degree of
  service intervention.
• Needs if the purpose of the programme is
  reducing offending, focus on criminogenic need
  the dynamic characteristics of higher risk
  individuals and their circumstances that actually
  are related to criminal conduct (the central
  eight)
• Responsivity Match the mode, strategies and
  style of service with the learning styles,
  motivations, readiness to change of individual
  offenders

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Kevins background

• Parents separate when he is 4. Issues around
  domestic abuse and physical abuse of Kevin in
  early years.
• Aggressive and bullying behaviour in nursery and
  primary school (several exclusions due to
  behavioural problems)
• Placed on CPR at age 6 for issues around neglect
  and emotional abuse.
• Age 11 exposed himself to female peer at school.
  Excluded for throwing a flask of acid in
  chemistry class.
• Regularly truanting at age 12.
• Resumed contact with father at age 13.
• At 14 he sexually abused step brother (6) and
  sister (7) on 6 occasions (2 counts of rape of a
  young child under ss 18 SOSA)
• Note name and details in case study have been
  altered to preserve confidentiality.

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Outcome Scores
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Kevins Intervention Programme

• Build self management skills, teach anger
  management (compulsivity and emotional
  regulation)
• Nurture interpersonal relationships
• Focus on pro-criminal attitudes (sexual feelings
  towards younger children)
• Enhance school work
• Increase access to pro-social hobbies and
  interests
• Work on family relationships

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Critiques of RNR and the What Works agenda

• What works for whom?
• What else works?
• Who works?
• Why does it work?

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Good Lives Model

• http//goodlivesmodel.com/glm/Home.html

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Risk-Need Model Draw backs

• Difficulty in motivating offenders
• pin-cushion metaphor
• Negative (or avoidant) treatment goals
• Does not recognise the role of
• personal identity or agency
• noncriminogenic needs
• context in rehabilitation

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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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The Good Lives Approach

• We have been so busy thinking about how to
  reduce sexual crimes that we have overlooked a
  rather basic truth recidivism may be further
  reduced through helping offenders to live better
  lives, not simply targeting isolated risk
  factors. (Ward et al 2006391)

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The Good Lives approach

• Ward Stewart (2003) argue
• the most effective way to reduce risk is to give
  individuals the necessary conditions to lead
  better lives (good lives) than to simply teach
  them how to minimise their chances of being
  incarcerated
• the primary aim of treatment should be to give
  offenders the necessary capabilities to secure
  important personal and social goods in acceptable
  ways in addition to the reduction and management
  of risk

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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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GLM Human Needs Goods

• Healthy Living
• Knowledge
• Excellence in work and play
• Excellence in agency (self-management)
• Inner Peace
• Relatedness (relating to others)
• Spirituality
• Happiness
• Creativity

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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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G-MAPs list of Primary goods

• Being Healthy (body mind)?
• Having Fun Achieving (Excitement, enjoyment,
  status, knowledge, mastery in play work)?
• Being my own person (independence, autonomy, self
  management, control of others / situations)?
• Having Purpose Making a Difference
  (spirituality, fulfilment, hope, and generosity)
• Having People in My Life (attachment, intimate,
  romantic, family, social and community
  relationships)?
• Staying Safe ( self others, routine, rules,
  order)?

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Primary Goods and Secondary Goods
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GLM Human Needs Goods

• Healthy Living
• Knowledge
• Excellence in work and play
• Excellence in agency (self-management)
• Inner Peace
• Relatedness (relating to others)
• Spirituality
• Happiness
• Creativity

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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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The Key Elements to Good Lives

• By focusing on the reasons or needs that ground
  the actions of offenders, it makes their
  behaviour intelligible and provides a more
  effective means of motivating them to enter
  treatment
• Offending reflects socially unacceptable and
  often personally frustrating attempts to pursue
  primary needs
• The problem is not the primary needs sought but
  the way the offender seeks to meet these needs

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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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What this means in practice? Kevin and Safer
Lives
Working towards my New Life
OLD LIFE
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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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Have my own place
Achievement Security Being my own person
Feel close to my Mum and Dad
A family of my own
Having people in my life Being healthy -
emotional health less stress
Having people in my life
Kevins New Life
Rich
Achieving -status
Lots of girlfriends
Own my own garage
Having people in my life intimacy Achievement -
status Being healthy sexual satisfaction
Achievement status Being healthy -emotional
well being control - respect
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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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Joining a youth club
Going to college
Having contact with my Mum
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Things about me that will help
Things I need to do
Things I get from others
Things I need from others
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Kevins GOOD LIVES PLAN
Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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Kevins Good Lives Plan for next 12 weeks
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Intervention and Planning with Young People who
Sexually Harm 2011
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The Debate Andrews, Bonta and Wormith (2011) on
GLM

• Andrews et al. argue
• The portrayal of RNR is inaccurate (e.g.
  descriptions of relevance of relationship and
  motivation)
• The role of universal need outlined in the GLM is
  untested and potentially dangerous
• What is the empirical evidence for a shift from
  RNR to GLM?

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At the present time, there is nothing unique in
GLM other than the encouragement of weak
assessment approaches (a return to unstructured
professional judgment) and the addition of
confusion in service planning. (Andrews,
2012)
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Ward, Yates and Williss response to Andrews et
al. (2012)

• There are significant omissions in their
  characterisation of offender rehabilitation and
  the degree to which it is underpinned by values
  of different types.
• Their summary of the GLM is incomplete and, in
  places, incorrect.
• Their assumptions and conclusions regarding the
  application of the GLM to practice are misleading
  and, in some instances, inaccurate.

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Values anyone?

• Some of the friends of federally sentenced women
  are becoming quite vocal in their insistence that
  we should not waste our time researching
  criminogenic risk/need factors but should help
  people to become whole and healthy when the
  focus is on the objective of reduced
  vitcitimization of other human beings, however,
  perhaps advances here too may require some
  specification, operationalization and testing of
  the predictive criterion validity of assessments
  and the underlining constructs of being whole
  and healthy and of healing. (Andrews 1995)

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Final thoughts

• Applying the Good Lives model. Bolting it on to
  RNR processes is missing the point.
• Who defines what a Good Life is?
• The political dimension of Good Lives. Are we
  ready to accept offenders as moral strangers.

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The Road from Crime

• http//vimeo.com/43658591

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Bibliography

• Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J. (2010a). The
  psychology of criminal conduct (5th ed.). New
  Providence, NJ LexisNexis Matthew Bender.
• Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., Wormith, J. S.
  (2011). The risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model
  Does adding the good lives model contribute to
  effective crime prevention? Criminal Justice and
  Behavior, 38, 735-755.
• F. McNeil, P. Raynor, C. Trotter (Eds.),
  Offender supervision New directions in theory,
  research and practice (pp. 41-64). New York, NY
  Willan.
• Ward, T., Maruna, S. (2007). Rehabilitation
  Beyond the risk paradigm. New York, NY
  Routledge.
• Ward, T., Yates, P.M. Willis, G (2012) The Good
  Lives Model and the Risk Need Responsivity Model
  A Critical Response to Andrews, Bonta, and
  Wormith (2011) Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39,
  94 -110

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Contact details

• Stuart.allardyce_at_ed.ac.uk