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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:17 pm
Time: 8:17 pm
Results for community penalties
1 results foundAuthor: West Yorkshire National Probation Services' Cocker, Sarah Title: Using Reconviction Data to Explore the Usefulness of Community Penalties in West Yorkshire Summary: • This study is based on two samples of offenders. The first (Community Penalties) comprised 343 offenders sentenced to a Community Punishment Order, a Community Rehabilitation Order, or a Community Punishment and Rehabilitation Order. The second sample (Comparison) consisted of 215 cases that had a proposal for one of the three community penalties in their Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) but who received a lesser sentence at court (i.e. no period of supervision by the probation service). • The two samples were not found to be well matched in terms of age, risk of reconviction (OGRS), and index offence. The samples were also taken from differing time periods. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of West Yorkshire community penalties based on this data alone. • The actual reconviction rate for the Community Penalties sample was 45.2%; this is 0.3% higher than the predicted rate of 44.9%. In contrast, the actual reconviction rate for the Comparison sample was 31.6%; this is 5.5% lower than the predicted rate of 37.1%. • The actual reconviction rate for the Community Penalties group was 8.1% lower than the recent national figures for community sentences (53.3%). The two studies used different counting methods and are therefore not directly comparable. • Those who were reconvicted in both the Community Penalties and Comparison samples tended to be younger and had higher predicted reconviction rates than those who did not re-offend. • Younger offenders were also found to have higher actual reconviction rates than older offenders in both samples. Offenders aged between 16-20 years had actual reconviction rates of 65.4% (Community Penalties sample) and 63.6% (Comparison sample) whilst offenders in the 35+ age bracket had reconviction rates of 19.2% and 20.3% respectively. • Analysis of reconviction rates by risk band (OGRS) showed that the reconviction rate increased with each risk band. For example, cases with an OGRS score between 0-25 had reconviction rates of 14.0% (Community Penalties) and 11.4% (Comparison) compared to reconviction rates of 83.8% and 77.8% respectively for cases with OGRS scores between 76-100. This suggests that OGRS is a useful predictor of risk of reconviction for both samples. • Cases with index offences of an ‘acquisitive’ nature had the highest reconviction rates in both the Community Penalties (68.4%) and Comparison (50%) samples. • Cases with a Community Punishment Order (CPO) had the lowest reconviction rates (33.8%) of those in the Community Penalties sample. Those with a Community Rehabilitation Order (CRO) had the highest rate (57.9%) whilst those with a Community Punishment & Rehabilitation Order (CPRO) had a reconviction rate of 36.4%. This rate is lower than anticipated although this may be due to the small number of cases with a CPRO and should be used with caution. • Reconviction rates for those who did and did not complete their community order were significantly different; the reconviction rate for those who completed was 33.2% (n=76) compared to a reconviction rate of 70.3% (n=71) for those who did not complete. However, those who completed their order had a much lower predicted reconviction rate (38.6%) than those who did not complete (59%). • In terms of first re-offence, a larger proportion (+12.4%) of cases that did not complete their community order committed an offence which was of a more serious nature than those who completed their order (47.9% compared to 35.5% respectively). • By the six month stage, 23% of the Community Penalties sample had been reconvicted of an offence and 52% of those who were reconvicted within the two year period had already done so. By 12 months 35% of the sample had been reconvicted and 77% of those who were reconvicted had already done so. • In contrast, by the six month stage, 16% of the Comparison sample had been reconvicted and 51% of those who were reconvicted in this sample had done so by this stage. By 12 months, 22% of the Comparison sample had been reconvicted and 69% of the Comparison sample who were reconvicted had done so by this stage. These findings suggest that the first few months after sentence are critical in terms of reducing the risk of further reconviction. • A larger proportion of the Comparison sample (52.9%, n=66) were convicted of only one offence within two-years compared to the Community Penalties sample (42.6%, n=36). Similar proportions of offenders in the Community Penalties (40%, n=62) and Comparison samples (38.2%, n=26) had two, three or four reconvictions within two-years. However, a much larger proportion (17.4%, n=27) of offenders in the Community Penalties sample had between 5 & 11 reconvictions compared to the Comparison sample (8.8%, n=6). Details: Wakefield, UK: National Probation Service (West Yorkshire), 2006. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2013 at: http://www.westyorksprobation.org.uk Year: 2006 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.westyorksprobation.org.uk Shelf Number: 127818 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCommunity CorrectionsCommunity PenaltiesProbationersRecidivismReconviction (U.K.) |