Game-changing assessment tool
This is a guest post by Professor Simon Pemberton of the University of Birmingham.
Different pathways
It has long been accepted that women take different pathways to men into the criminal justice system. These pathways often reflect life histories marked by abuse, violence, substance use and poverty. Whilst policymakers and politicians often recognise that imprisonment fails to address the complex issues that bring women to the door of the criminal justice system, the lack of a robust evidence base supporting community alternatives is often cited as a reason for the continued use of prison.
Jabbs Foundation for Women and Girls
Our work at the Women, Crime and Justice Research Group at the University of Birmingham, funded by The JABBS Foundation for Women and Girls, has sought to contribute to an evidence base for community-based, gender-responsive interventions. In doing so, we worked to identify an assessment tool that could be used by practitioners to identify the key issues for justice-involved women, support desistance and assist women to live healthier, safer and more fulfilling lives. Moreover, the data gathered from these assessments, when aggregated across whole cohorts of women, would be able to provide robust outcome measures that offered insights into the effectiveness of community-based interventions.
WRNA
This led us to the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA), a tool originally developed in the United States by Professor Pat Van Voorhis and colleagues. WRNA is to date the most comprehensive gender-responsive assessment tool specifically designed for women involved in the criminal justice system. It contains almost 200 needs/strengths questions on issues like abuse, past trauma, substance use, housing, mental health, education, financial security, relationships, parenting and self-efficacy, in order to assess the risks of reoffending. By doing so, it helps identify what is needed to address the root causes and support justice-involved women towards healing and inclusion.
Validation
We’ve now completed the UK’s first validation study of the WRNA, in a milestone moment for our research. This means we have demonstrated the tool works as it should in a UK context, with accuracy and reliability.
To do this, we worked with women’s centres in England and Wales under the Effective Women’s Centres Partnership, collecting assessment data across a 4-6 month period from more than 500 women to test whether the scales within the WRNA accurately measured needs and strengths, as well as predicted the likelihood of reoffending.
Alongside this analysis, we interviewed practitioners and service users to understand the ways in which questions in the assessment are interpreted by those using it in real-life settings.
Complexity
The validation study demonstrates the complexity of issues that lie in the background of the lives of many justice-involved women. The WRNA scales that demonstrate the highest average scores in our sample were: physical abuse (as an adult), mental health issues (current & historic), PTSD, and employment/financial issues. This serves as an important reminder that, given this complexity, the effectiveness of interventions cannot be measured in binary reoffending outcomes alone. The reduction in contextual needs and the increases in strengths are critical to achieving a more nuanced understanding of success in this policy area. The WRNA offers a way to do this.
Women’s centres in Birmingham, Cornwall, Gloucester, Greater Manchester, and Yorkshire are now using WRNA. So far, more than 2,000 women in the UK have been assessed using WRNA, with very encouraging results and feedback about its impact.
A more nuanced picture
Practitioners say it gives them a clearer, more nuanced picture of the women they are working with. With a greater understanding of the women they work with, they are able to provide effective tailored support. The recognised scales that the WRNA is based on are familiar to statutory services enabling multi-agency working.
Women have said they feel seen as a whole person and that their full life story is taken into account, rather than just the events that directly led to their offence. They have disclosed experiences of trauma and abuse they had not previously shared, which means they are able to be linked to the services that they require to support their healing and recovery.
Women’s centres are able to evidence the value of the important relational work that they do. WRNA offers robust and reliable outcome measures for policy commissioners to base funding decisions on.
A major step forward
WRNA is not a silver bullet. No assessment tool is. But it is a major step forward toward delivering effective interventions for justice-involved women. Our recent meta-analysis demonstrated gender-responsive interventions were up to 42% more effective in reducing reoffending than gender-neutral ones. We found that a gendered assessment was one of four key components to a gender-responsive approach.
It’s also a reminder that risk assessment tools should not just be about predicting failure. They should be about supporting the real solutions that will transform lives.
Developing confidence in community alternatives
The Government, through the Women’s Justice Board, has again committed to reducing the number of women in prison and addressing their distinct needs. The WRNA offers a tool that can not only inform practice and the delivery of community-based interventions, but will contribute to an evidence base that will inspire confidence in alternatives to prison.
Thanks to Katherine Hanlon for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.
