1. society
2. crime

Peter Neyroud CBE QPM
Institute of Criminology
University of Cambridge
Overview
The Gateway to the criminal justice
system: principles and practice
 A Crime Harm approach
 Operation Turning Point – deterrence
and desistance
 Lessons for developing the Gateway?

Why does the Gateway
matter?
Systematic review of all studies on juvenile
court processing finds juvenile court does
not reduce reoffending overall.
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Most studies: backfiring effect
“Almost all of the results are negative in
direction, as measured by prevalence,
incidence, severity, and self-report outcomes.”
Petrosino et al. (2010)
35 years, 29 studies, over 7,000 juveniles
Gateway has evolved
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In 1970’s Cautioning “a sensible and useful way of
dealing with certain types of offender, and that police
discretion not to prosecute is exercised widely”
(Steer, 1970: 59).
By 2011 Out of court disposals accounted for around
38% of disposals
Conditional cautions introduced in 2003
Informal Warnings expanded and added restorative
justice
Proposed changes
 Government consultation about “community remedy”
closed in March 2013
 And proposing new guidelines – at least 7th new set since
1980…
A Gateway under fire?
Conditional Cautioning – an
unevaluated ‘experiment’
Conditional Cautions – current
conditions
Research on cautioning and out
of court disposals?

In 1963 Rose and Hamilton (1970) conducted the only UK
randomised controlled trial of police use of cautions
 Compared ‘simple’ cautioning with ‘cautioning plus supervision’
 Found that supervision did not substantially affect recidisvism
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Studies since have shown
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Instant cautions may work better than deferred (Giller, 1981)
Cautions may “net-widen” (Farrington and Bennett, 1981)
Cautioning may be discriminatory (Landau and Nathan, 1983)
Cautions have not always been applied consistently (Mott, 1983,
Laycock and Tarling, 1985, Giller and Tutt, 1987, Sandars, 1988
and Evans and Wilkinson, 1990)
 Cautions using restorative justice look “promising” (Young and
Goold, 1999)
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But none have tested effectiveness of caution v
prosecution in an RCT despite Farrington and Bennett
calling for such a test in 1981
What should work?
The evidence
Evidence shows swiftness and certainty of
punishment are more important to deter
offenders than harsh punishment.
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Swiftness: Turning Point offenders must
report to Offender Managers the first
business day after arrest.
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The longer the gap between an offence
and punishment, the less it works.
Sword of Damocles
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Certainty: The threat of certain
prosecution if offenders breach a plan.
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Evidence shows that threat of swift and
certain punishment can be more
effective than the punishment itself.
Story of the Sword of Damocles:
The threat of certain punishment
To stop a braggart from boasting, the
king orders him to dine sitting under a
sword suspended by a thin silk thread.
The king’s threat is that if the braggart
utters just one boast, the king will cut the
thread so the sword kills him. The
braggart successfully eats many, many
meals without boasting.
The Gateway tests?
Suffiency of Evidence
Public Interest to Prosecute
Potential principles for the
Gateway?

Effectiveness
 Reduced Harm
 Reduced reoffending
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Efficiency
 Cost-benefit
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Legitimacy
 Victims
 Public
 offenders
What if evidence was used
to redesign?
Harm: triaging offenders to treatment
based on their potential risk of harm
 Combining Deterrence and Desistance
in the treatments pre-court
 Improving the consistency of treatment
pre-court
 Providing better needs and risk analysis
to match treatment to offender
 Giving victims a better service
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Applying Harm: The Crime
Harm triage
A random sample of 100,000 records
from the UK Police National Computer’s
Phoenix criminal records database
 Produces over 3,000,000 data items
about the 100,000 offenders
 Replicating Berk et al. (2009) model with
the larger database
 Using statistical analysis to model the
factors predicting serious harm
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High, Medium and low risk offenders
High Risk (2%)
Neither High nor
Low Risk (36%)
Low Risk (62%)
Cosma, Sherman and Neyroud (forthcoming)
Deterrence and Desistance:
Operation Turning Point

Hypothesis is that police can prevent crime by
a combined treatment
 Holding a prosecution over the offender
(Deterrence)
 Agreeing a contract to support the offender to
stop offending (Desistance)
 But insisting on compliance in return for nonprosecution (Deterrence)
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Treatment is a deferred prosecution with
conditions, targeted at the 60+% of offenders
who can be assessed as a “low risk of serious
harm”’
Method is an Randomised Controlled Trial
15
Operation ‘Turning Point’
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Sample: offenders whom the police have
decided to prosecute, who are:
Low risk offenders
• Who have no previous conviction (they may have
previous cautions or other diversions)
• or one prior conviction (more than 5 years ago if an
adult and 2 years ago if juvenile).
• And offence is not likely to result in instant prison
sentence
•
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Randomly assigning them to prosecution or
police offender management
Developing and testing a standard protocol of
tactics for police offender management
The Turning Point Experiment
Sample of offenders whom the
police have decided to prosecute.
Random assignment
Prosecutio
n
Turning
Point
Comparing like with like:
Measure reoffending, cost, victim satisfaction
Decision making
Eight filters/factors:
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Prosecution
Previous convictions
Likely sentence
Safety check
Sensitive case
Victims’ wishes
Any other reason
Assigned to
“Prosecution” or
“Turning Point”
The Randomiser: the‘Cambridge
Gateway’
What’s Involved?

Voluntary
participation

Non-compliance
 Failure to keep to plan
 Reoffending
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Agreed ‘TurningPoint Plan’
Breach
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Compliance =
no prosecution
Prosecution
Turning Point Phases
Phase 1 – Court only
10
Phase 2 – TPP only
55
204
Phase 3 – Randomised:
Expanding to all Birmingham
424
Phase 4 – Randomised:
High Treatment as Assigned:
Aiming for 400 cases
Turning Point Conditions
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Restoration/Reparation 65%
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 Compensation 40%
 Community Payback 36%
 Letter of Apology 20%
Movement Constraint
33%
 Exclusion Zone 27%
 Not to Contact Victim 15%
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Rehabilitation 58%
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SMART Team 36%
Employment 16%
Mental Health 11%
Housing 5%
Anger management 2%
Debt 2%
Drug Search 2%
Desistance
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Requirement to comply
with contract and stop
offending under threat of
prosecution
Deterrence
Turning Point Crime Types
N=205
Threatening
words and
behaviour/har
rassment
6%
Other
12%
Drugs
12%
Criminal
Damage
12%
Property
32%
Violent
26%
Conditional Cautions/Out-of-Court
Disposals: Quality of
implementation
Tremendous potential
 Reduce reoffending
 Satisfy victims
 Cut criminal justice costs
Substantial risks
 Ineffective/backfiring conditions
 Upset victims
 Loss of public trust and confidence
Consistency: Improving
Decision-Making
Supported
DecisionMaking
Officer Discretion
Prescribed DecisionMaking
Early decision-making
Guidance was key
A few inappropriate inclusions (reviewed and
charged)… and exclusions:
“PIC is a… severe alcoholic and I fear that
turning point maybe too late for him.”
“Offender showed intent.”
“No remorse.”
“PIC has already been given the opportunity
to complete restorative justice and refused to
co-operate.”
“Longstanding ongoing neighbour dispute.”
Basic Decision Support IT
Quality of Conditions
)
Findings: Portal
Highly effective at ensuring conditions are
“S.M.A.R.T.”, when it’s used
 Guidance but flexible
 Can be adapted to increase or decrease
discretion
 However, issues around choosing which
pathway
 Pathways are only as good as our partners
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A better service for Victims
Block randomisation of all cases to
“personal victim” or “no”
 The randomised samples of victims
(TPP or Prosecution) interviewed
 Interviews from Stages 1&2 used to
redesign service
 Interviews from Stage 4 under way to
compare treatment and control
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Template: Victim Contacts
Begin with restorative questions
 Discuss police motives—what we think
we can accomplish here and compare
with likely court outcomes
 Focus on “why”—desired outcomes for
victim, offender
 Most have been over the phone
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Victim Feedback: Officers
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…I’m very grateful, they did everything that they said they
were going to do even though they are very stretched. For
me it all went very smoothly, they were very supportive after
it happened, they looked after me, I felt safe, I felt listened
to, I never once felt they weren't taking me seriously or
he wasn’t being punished or anything like that.
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…because of the compassion showed during the whole
process towards my son. The compassion and efficiency it
was dealt with.
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The people we spoke to were very personable. I got the
impression that they were on our side, that this was an
affront to our family.
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It was actually a really nice process because they were
very supportive on the opinions of myself and my son.
Victim RCT Outcome
“the Turning Point sample was 45% more
satisfied by the handling of their cases
(50% ‘Satisfied’ or ‘Very Satisfied’ on the
court side, 72.5% on the Turning Point
side).”
Slothower, M.P. (2014)
Level of Service / Case Management
Inventory (LS/CMI)
Risk-Need-Responsivity
Match the level of
service to the
offender’s risk to reoffend
Assess criminogenic needs and target them in
treatment
Maximize the offender’s ability to learn from a
rehabilitative intervention by tailoring the
intervention to the learning style, motivation,
abilities and strengths of the offender.
Andrews & Bontha (2007)
Why LS/CMI?
Risk Score prediction or Recidivism
Message: The LS/CMI risk
score is a valid measure of
recidivism.
Source:
Voss, Cullen & Smith (2008)
Message: Following the
full RNR strategy has
higher reduction in
recidivism.
Source: Bonta & Andrews (2007)
Offender Manager Quotes
“At present we do not have an accurate method to evaluate and
record risk. Much of our risk assessments are based on gut feeling
tied in with a quantitative assessment based on the number of
convictions etc. Which is often hugely inaccurate”
“It is a proven tool to effectively assess and manage risk which is
easily defensible. It gives credence to your risk assessment and
ensures that you are focussing your time on the right people and that
you are addressing their needs appropriately to reduce recidivism”
“I have received no offender management training and I believe the
current IOM system is flawed in it assessment criteria”
What if?
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Low Harm offenders triaged to treatments
supported by deferred prosecution and
high harm to offender management
Integrated approach by Police and partners
to combined deterrence/desistance
Improved professional decision-making
and practice
Better service to victims…
And it may be cost-effective – results will
tell