Managerialisation PDF

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Summary

Lecture notes on managerialisation - the art of risk management. Contains a brief history of the topic as well as explaining what it is and how it is carried out by the government. Includes the Government Acts that were put in place in order for it to run efficiently. ...

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Managerialisation: the art of risk management Brief history of managerialisation          

Idea that we can predict people’s behaviour based on risk factors – broken home, not completed school, criminal family members. In 1970s Conservatives got into power and Thatcher was pushing the three E’s. Three Es – economy, efficiency and effectiveness Ideas that privatising companies would be beneficial and improve the efficiency of them. ‘Post-bureaucratic new public managerialism’ – targets, PIs, value for money Audit Commission – three Es in the use of public resources. Idea that public resources should be audited. Audit commission inspected prisons etc. including youth justice system. The audit commission realised that the youth justice system was ineffective and inefficient. They produced = Misspent Youth - Audit Commission 1996 Youth justice system ‘uneconomic, inefficient and ineffective’ Prevention could lead to potential savings of £40 million

New Labour’s brand of managerialisation    

Didn’t want to be about privatisation. They wanted to improve service. Labour embraced the right wing policies. New Labour promised to ‘break with past failures’ New Labour’s brand of managerialisation: managerialisation is a necessary act of modernisation that improves productivity, value for money and quality of service Broad acceptance of ‘audit culture’ – parallels between Tackling Youth Crime: Reforming Youth Justice (Labour Party 1996) and Misspent Youth

1998 Crime and Disorder Act  Key element in New Labour’s youth justice reforms  Misspent Youth recommendations found in the Act  The creation of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) to impose ‘order from the centre’. They said it had no directness. They were temas working on their own with no national standards.  The establishment of multi-agency Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) – criminal justice and welfare agencies  The youth justice system being given the overarching aim of preventing offending by young people  Risk-factor prevention paradigm – Farrington – Cambridge Delinquent Development Study. Problem is that it identifies lots of people at risk, but only a small proportion of these people are actually offending. Risk-factor prevention paradigm    

Actuarial justice – Feeley and Simon’s New Penology Once you start measuring peoples risk and the risk they might pose. They introduced this Asset common assessment profile - introduced in 2000 - clear-cut application of actuarial principles ‘All children and young people entering the youth justice system should benefit from a structured needs assessment ... to identify the risk factors associated with offending behaviour and to inform effective intervention programmes. The Youth Justice Board has developed the Asset common assessment profile for this purpose’ (Youth Justice Board 2004)

Asset common assessment profile  

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To promote consistency of practice ‘Historically, risk assessment and classification have been informal, highly discretionary procedures carried out by individuals who have varying philosophies, different levels of experience and knowledge and who use dissimilar criteria in the assessment process’ (Kempf-Leonard & Peterson 2000) ‘Human decision-makers tend to consider a very limited (and often somewhat idiosyncratic) range of information in making a decision. ... Many ills follow idiosyncratic risk calculations, and the most obvious of them is inconsistency’ (Clear & Cadora 2001) Living arrangements Family and personal arrangements Education, training and employment Neighbourhood Lifestyle Substance use Physical health Emotional and mental health Perception of self and others Thinking and behaviour Attitudes to offending Motivation to change Said if someone has all of these risk factors then they are likely to become an offender.

Summary of Tim’s ASSET core profile  

Assessed as high risk. Factors that should be addressed that would have an impact on his behaviour:  Family and personal relationships = a strong relationship with family is important in order for children to feel loved and cared for. No mention of the dad.  Education, training and employment = a part time job or placement will help him feel a purpose. Give him an incentive to want to behave and work.  Substance abuse = tackle his substance abuse so that he isn’t reliant on the drug and won’t cause crimes in order to be able to acquire money for his habit.  Emotional and mental health = need to tackle this in order for his anger to be controlled.

Criminal Justice & Immigration Act 2008  

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Biggest legislative change since 1998 Crime & Disorder Act The 2008 Act introduced the Youth Rehabilitation Order (YRO)  ‘YOTs should make better use of Asset to determine the amount as well as the nature of interventions with individuals using a scaled approach’. (Audit Commission 2004) Scaled Approach used with Referral Orders, YROs or the community element of a custodial sentence (DTO) ‘The Scaled Approach … aims to reduce the likelihood of reoffending by tailoring the intensity of the intervention to the young person’s assessed risks and needs identified using the Asset assessment tool’. (YJB 2010) Previously sentence received determined number of ‘contacts’

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However, YOTs spent significant time with low risk young people Scaled Approach matches intensity of YOTs work to young person’s assessed risk of reoffending Links Asset-based risk assessment to intensity of intervention

Scaled Approach 1. Determining likelihood of reoffending - ‘static’ factors  Offence type (motoring=4; burglary=3; other=0)  Age at first reprimand/caution/warning (10-12=4; 13-17=2; no previous reprimand/ caution/warning =0)  Age at first conviction (10-13=4; 14-17=3; no previous convictions=0)  Number of previous convictions (4 or more=4; 1-3=3; no previous convictions=0)  Total ‘static’ factors = 0 - 16  Plus total ‘dynamic’ factors from 12 Asset Sections = 0 - 48  Total static and dynamic factors score = 0 – 64 2. Determining intervention level       

0 - 14 = Low likelihood of reoffending – Standard 15 - 32 = Medium likelihood of reoffending - Enhanced 33 - 64 = High likelihood of reoffending - Intensive Statutory contacts for assessed intervention level Standard: 2 contacts per month for first 3 months: 1 contact per month for rest of order Enhanced: 4 contacts per month for first 3 months: 2 contact per month for rest of order Intensive: 12contacts per month for first 3 months: 4 contact per month for rest of order

Issues with risk management      

Asset criticised for restricting professional judgement Asset criticised for subjective nature of scoring Finding out more leads to higher Asset score What is the relationship between risk factors and offending? Correlation or causality? What outcomes are you trying to predict/measure? Reoffending, reconviction, seriousness/frequency of offending, other behaviour? What being predicted? Substance abuse, risk to the public?

Issues with scaled approach    

Disproportionate interventionism - excessive or insufficient - based on predicted not actual behaviour – making this person a number Reductionist aggregation - based on risk score not individual profile/circumstances Negative and retrospective agenda - lack of prospectively promoting potential for positive outcomes Mechanises practice more strictly than Asset...