Our Work
The RaRiE project is divided into four main ‘work packages’ (WPs), which are represented in the diagram below. Within each of the three countries, team members will work on and compare the results across the four work packages. At the same time, we’ll also compare the results in each work package (and overall) across the three countries.
The diagram below illustrates this:
The Rehabilitative Ideal (WP1)
Work Package 1 (WP1) explores how and in what forms rehabilitation is represented, constructed and contested in law, policy, penal politics and public discourse?
WP1 is literature- and desk-based. During the project’s first year, Fergus, Miranda and Thomas will lead work to produce a comprehensive synthesis of existing academic work and, where relevant, grey literature that discusses how the rehabilitative ideal has been understood and constructed in each country, and how these versions of the rehabilitative ideal differ. Each of us is writing a similarly structured synthesis for our own country, and we will then co-write a comparative analysis of the literature as a whole. While we will focus mainly on the 21st century, necessary attention will be paid to the histories of rehabilitation in each country.
The Scale and Shape of Rehabilitation (WP2)
Work Package 2 (WP2) examines what forms of rehabilitation exist and are pursued, at what scale, and at what cost in each country? Over the course of years 1 and 2, Fergus, Hilde, Amy and Fern will source and analyse governmental and criminal legal system data, for example, about the size and socio-demographic profiles of correctional populations and their rehabilitative needs, about staffing of and spending on correctional services, and, crucially, about spending on rehabilitative services and practices both within and beyond these services. Some of this data is already available via existing European and international projects (SPACE I and II statistics; World Prison Brief; Probation in Europe handbook). However, a key part of this project’s innovation (and legacy) will be the development of new metrics for measuring and profiling rehabilitation in each country using the six forms model. We aim to review, devise and employ metrics that can be compared across countries.
Rehabilitative Technologies (WP3)
Work Package 3 concerns how and in what forms is rehabilitation operationalised via new and old technologies. Within correctional systems, the process of rehabilitation typically involves assessment of risks and needs to inform the development of case- or action-plans at the individual level. Increasingly, these tasks have been structured via tools, technologies that are commissioned by correctional services and administered by their staff. At the organisational level, data collected via these tools is sometimes aggregated to inform service design and delivery. Interventions have also become increasingly structured, for example via accredited, manualised groupwork programmes or specific approaches to 1-1 work and/or via the commissioning of rehabilitative services from outside bodies (private sector and/or not-for-profit). Digital technologies have enabled new kinds of intervention; for example, supporting changes in behaviour (or compliance with court orders) via smart-phone apps and/or remote electronic monitoring not just of location but also, via biometrics, of alcohol or drug use. Evaluation tools are also sometimes commissioned and employed, as are independent evaluations of new rehabilitative initiatives.
Through examination of the public records about service commissioning of these rehabilitative tools and technologies, and through individual and/or group interviews groups with their commissioners, designers and providers (n=10 per country), WP3 will explore what forms of rehabilitation these technologies pursue, and at what scale and cost. The three country leads (Fergus, Miranda and Thomas) and the three post-graduate researchers (Dina, Ulla and OSLO PHD) will cooperate to complete this work together.
Practices and Experiences of Rehabilitation (WP4)
Work Package 4 (WP4) asks how rehabilitation is understood and experienced by those directly involved in its everyday practices (i.e. those practising and those undergoing rehabilitation)? It is the main focus of the PhD projects of our three post-graduate researchers: Dina (in Glasgow), Ulla (in Leiden) and OSLO PHD.
While work packages 1-3 will clarify ‘official’ understandings of the rehabilitative ideal (WP1) and how it is being pursued (WP2 and WP3), ‘bottom-up’ exploration of the micro-level, informal and lived experience of rehabilitation is also crucial. To that end, WP4 will involve direct research with three different kinds of human participants in rehabilitation.
We will conduct individual and/or group interviews with relevant justice leaders (politicians, civil servants, senior managers in prisons and probation, third sector leaders, activists)(n=15 per country), with frontline practitioners (n=25 per country) and with people with experience of receiving rehabilitative services (n=25 per country). In total therefore, and including the WP3 interviews, the project will involve about 225 participants across the three countries. Dina, Ulla and OSLO PHD will be focused on the conduct and analysis of the interviews with frontline practitioners and those receiving rehabilitative services.
WP4 will also involve 2-day-long creative workshops (one per country) with 15-20 self-selected participants from across the three participant sub-groups. These workshops will use creative methods and will be co-facilitated with local arts practitioners. This approach aims to allow participants a different way to reflect upon, relate and represent their own experiences of rehabilitation, by co-creating artworks. We also hope to use the artworks in processes of dialogical comparative analysis (see next section) and in engagement activities with policymakers, professionals and wider publics.