Developing Offender Engagement: Evaluating Probation Trust Pilots

• Date: 21 May 2012
• Published date: 21 May 2012
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7863(2012)0000013013
• Pages: 199-209
• Author: Sue Rex,Elaine Ellis,Nigel Hosking,Wendy Hyett

DEVELOPING OFFENDER

ENGAGEMENT: EVALUATING

PROBATION TRUST PILOTS

Sue Rex, Elaine Ellis, Nigel Hosking and

Wendy Hyett

ABSTRACT

The Offender Engagement Programme (OEP) within National Offender

Management Service (NOMS) has been built on our collaborative

approach with probation trusts to develop approaches which can support

more effective offender engagement. Drawing areas of potential practice

development from our early fieldwork and literature review, events for

trusts and reference groups with practitioners and middle managers, we

identified where more focussed work with trusts would develop learning

and evidence which could be shared. In response to an invitation to express

an interest, 22 trusts committed themselves to taking forward an OEP

pilot, starting between March and May 2011. External evaluation is

planned for nine trusts in total and is being undertaken by our research

partners: a team from the Institute of Criminal Policy Research (ICPR)

Birkbeck College London and Leicester University, and a team based at

Sheffield University which includes Fergus McNeill from Glasgow

University.

Perspectives on Evaluating Criminal Justice and Corrections

Advances in Program Evaluation, Volume 13, 199–209

Copyright r2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1474-7863/doi:10.1108/S1474-7863(2012)0000013013

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