Context

This study was commissioned in the context of the introduction of a ‘two-tier plus’ framework for Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs; or Out of Court Resolutions). This new framework consolidates the current statutory disposals into two primary options: Diversionary Caution and Community Caution.

In advance of the implementation of the framework, this study aimed to provide an overview of how different police forces use OOCDs; to improve the use of OOCDs with conditions attached that address mental health and other health-related vulnerabilities; and to produce the foundations of practice change and improve the data collection methods to monitor their use and enable potential further research to explore their effectiveness.

Key findings

As is typically the case with diversion work, approaches vary considerably between police forces. The main findings about current provision were:

• Just over half (19) of the participating forces were using a two-tier OOCD model in March 2022, with a further 13 forces reported to be introducing two-tier in 2022 or working towards introducing it in 2023.
• OOCD processes and protocols varied a great deal between forces and work with the case study forces identified significant missed OOCD opportunities, even in forces which had high levels of OOCD usage.
• Across 37 forces, 189 services were identified that could be attached as conditions to OOCDs, with substance misuse and mental health services the most commonly available to be attached to OOCDs.
• Nevertheless, most force areas reported that the local provision of mental health-related services generally was not sufficient for the needs of vulnerable offenders with OOCDs.
• A range of funding models for available services were identified, the most common of which were police-funded, externally funded (for example, by local authorities) and offender-funded.
• The training of police officers and staff on OOCDs, particularly in relation to conducting vulnerability assessments, was generally conducted on an ad-hoc basis and was not available as a structured programme for most police forces, with staff turnover and inexperienced officers identified as key challenges.
• Disproportionality in who received OOCDs was identified as a concern by some OOCD stakeholders.
• Force use of OOCD scrutiny panels, which independently review anonymised cases, varied greatly across forces.

Researchers found that most forces did not have a force-wide policy requiring a health vulnerability screening & assessment, but relied on frontline staff (and their supervisors) to make decisions regarding the conditions and interventions attached to OOCDs.

Conclusions

Overall, the study found significant variation across forces in their OOCD processes and in how well-developed and well-established these processes are. In many force areas, OOCDs were under-used. One of the prime reasons for this, was a lack of appropriate interventions available.

At the frontline operational level, limited use of vulnerability assessments in the OOCD process and limited input from Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services were also widely reported. In relation to offender engagement and compliance with conditions, a lack of meaningful data available meant it was not possible to evaluate how effective these disposals are.

Recommendations

Helpfully, the research produced a series of practice guides and tools to support forces to develop and maintain good practice in using OOCDs to support adults with health vulnerabilities including:

• Health Vulnerability Assessment Guide: to support forces in identifying the health vulnerability assessment process and enabling better decision-making throughout. This guide also includes good practice examples for working with Liaison and Diversion.
• Quality Assurance Guide: discussing how forces can procure in a way that facilitates a good evidence base.
• Auditing Missed Opportunities Guide: provides forces with a simple methodology for auditing OOCD decisions to identify learning.
• Data collection tool prototype: to support forces in gathering and using OOCD data.

Thanks to Ashwini Chaudhary for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.