Communities and Culture Committee

Scrutiny Inquiry : Domestic Abuse

Response from National Offender Management Service Wales

I welcome the opportunity to make representations to the Committee in respect of my responsibility for offender management in Wales, which includes the management of offenders who have been sentenced by the courts for crimes relating to domestic abuse.

Introduction and background

Following recent changes it may be helpful if I first place my organisation into context within the criminal justice setting. Since 1 April 2008 NOMS Wales and the HMPS in Wales merged to form one organisation, NOMS Cymru, which is part of the newly formed NOMS Agency within the Ministry of Justice. As Director of NOMS Cymru I am responsible for public protection and reducing re-offending through the commissioning and delivery of offender management services through prison and probation services in Wales. Ministerial accountability rests with the Lord Chancellor and Minister of State for Justice. Over the next 24 months similar arrangements will be implemented in the regions in England.

Prevalence of domestic abuse in Wales

As part of our commissioning role we would look to identify and forecast demand for the variety of offender management services, including interventions that we will need to deliver. There is concern in Wales at the level of domestic abuse. The recorded violent incidents in Wales do not differ vastly from regions in England, this suggests a high incidence of domestic abuse and that domestic abuse may account for a higher proportion of recorded violence.

Welsh Women’s Aid is a volunteer agency supporting (primarily female) victims of domestic violence. It reported that in 2006/07

There were 1180 Women and 1001 children who were housed in hostels provided by the organisation.
1651 drop-in visits and 7872 telephone calls were made to the agency (and its partners)
1358 requests for refuge were turned down.
56% of women in contact with the service experienced physical abuse
13% experienced sexual abuse
The majority also reported emotional (58%) abuse with psychological (37%), financial (18%) abuse and isolation (18%) also being reported

Treatment needs and demand in custody and the community

Domestic violence is a "hidden offence” as it is not legally categorised as a specific criminal offence. However research in the UK and abroad has indicated the prevalence of this type of offending behaviour. It has been estimated that a quarter of convicted male offenders in England and Wales are, or have been, perpetrators of domestic violence (Offender Assessment System (OASys), Internal Home Office Report 1999). Data from the prisons in Wales suggests the proportion to be slightly higher and OASys assessments completed in 2006/07 by the probation services in Wales indicated that 21% (1492) offenders serving community sentences were perpetrators of domestic abuse. In 2007/08, 375 men were sentenced from Welsh courts to community orders with a requirement to attend a domestic abuse group work programme.

Treatment programmes for offenders in custody and on community orders.

Probation services in Wales deliver the Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) as a requirement of a community sentence imposed by the courts. It is based on the "Duluth” model and employs a package of inter-agency risk assessment, pro-active offender management and structured victim contact in addition to the specific programme group work sessions delivered to offenders. It was fully accredited by NOMS Correctional Services Accreditation Panel in 2004 and rolled out in Wales in 2006.

The demand for men to attend domestic abuse programmes in the community has significantly increased in recent years, partly due to the introduction of specialist domestic abuse courts. Domestic abuse perpetrators on community orders have their needs met and risks managed by individual offender managers.

In addition, the Prison Service runs the Healthy Relationships Programme in England for those men who have committed a domestic abuse offence. We are looking at ways in which the needs of domestic abuse offenders can be treated more effectively in prisons Wales.

Prisoners also engage in other offending behaviour programmes whilst in custody that will address some of the risk factors associated with domestic abuse, for example problem solving skills, emotional control, anger management and alcohol abuse. A programme for prisoners in Wales directly aimed at addressing the risk factors clearly linked to domestic abuse would be of benefit and enhance our aim of reducing the prevalence of this crime in Wales. We will continue to work with colleagues in the Ministry of justice to progress this requirement

Evaluation and Outcome Evidence

To help inform commissioning decisions there needs to be sufficient information on the impact of correctional services interventions for domestic abusers. The accreditation of community and prison-based domestic abuse programmes depends, amongst other things, on the existence of a credible evaluation plan for each individual programme. At present although there is a significant body of international research into what have been termed variably as "domestic violence” or "batterer” programmes (e.g. Dobbash et al 1999a;1999b; Gondolf 2002), numerous research design, programme implementation and analytical problems have severely restricted attempts to fully evaluate the outcome of such programmes (Davis & Taylor 1999). This presents significant difficulties to evaluators of domestic violence programmes when attempting to design a robust evaluation methodology to assess whether the programmes have an impact (e.g. Gondolf, 2001, 2002, 2004; Hollin 2006).

Future resource allocation for commissioning within probation and prison services demands evidence to inform decisions as to whether treatment programmes offer value for money in the strategy to reduce offending behaviour.

A NOMS Domestic Violence Programme Evaluation Strategy for England and Wales has been developed which adopts a pluralistic and comprehensive approach for evaluating all accredited offending behaviour programmes in the National Probation Service. This is the recommended approach for evaluating Domestic Violence programmes (e.g. Bowen and Gilchrist, 2004). Each domestic abuse programme delivered by prisons and probation will have an evaluation plan with key activities and products in the short, mid and long-term of programme roll out and on going delivery.

The current evaluation requirements are to conduct a process evaluation. Specifically to assess whether the Domestic Violence Programmes have been implemented as intended, assess the quality of data collected, and to indicate the readiness for a full outcome evaluation with a recommendation on the most robust design that is realistic and possible to achieve.

This evaluation supports the drive for evidence-based interventions and ongoing evaluation of accredited offending behaviour programmes in the National Probation Service and HM Prison Service. It will provide an updated report for the Correctional Services Accreditation Panel on how the programme is progressing in meeting its evaluation plan and inform their discussions. Finally, the study will complement other research being conducted by the National Offender Management Service in the area of interventions and in meeting its aims of reducing re-offending and rehabilitate offenders.

It is noted that alcohol is a significant feature in the lives of many domestic abuse perpetrators. We are currently looking at the feasibility of developing a specific alcohol programme to pilot in prisons in Wales, which would address some of the underlying offending issues linked to domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse programmes for offenders in Wales

NOMS Cymru is looking at ways to increase the capacity to treat domestic abuse perpetrators on probation supervision and in prisons in Wales through the introduction of effective methods to reduce the risk of further offending involving domestic abuse. In the community this is helped by our re-alignment of commissioning resources linked with challenging targets for Probation Services in Wales to provide the appropriate service to meet demand. Last year we commissioned probation services in Wales to ensure that 66 offenders completed the relevant accredited domestic abuse programme (IDAP). For 2008-09 we have increased the IDAP offender community provision by 33% to provide 88 completions

In addition we have worked with prison and probation colleagues to develop and deliver an innovative pilot programme at HMP Cardiff, which was the first of its kind in England and Wales. This enabled probation and prison service staff to work together to deliver the Intensive Domestic Abuse Programme, (IDAP) across prisons and the community. The experience of joint delivery was positive and 8 men completed the programme. The pilot is currently being robustly evaluated and initial results will be available in June 2008, after which decisions on rolling the programme out further will be able to be taken. The pilot has the potential of providing a flexible service to help meet demands for addressing offenders’ domestic abuse issues in custody and community.

Should you require any further information or clarification please contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Yvonne Thomas
Director of National Offender Management Service Cymru