Mr. Paul Delaney:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for this opportunity to further expand on our written submission. The Cornmarket Project was established in 1999 as a multi-agency response to criminality and substance misuse issues in County Wexford. Each year, the project deals with approximately 250 individual clients with criminality and substance misuse issues, 170 of whom on average are direct referrals from the Probation Service. The Cornmarket Project receives core funding from the Department of Justice and Equality through the Probation Service, and is under the umbrella of Wexford Local Development, the local development company in County Wexford mandated to deliver rural development, social inclusion and community development programmes on behalf of the Government.

The project has an outcome-focused, community-facing and client-centred approach. The Cornmarket Project's primary goal is to work in collaboration with the Probation Service and other partners to ensure positive behavioural change in medium to high-risk offenders with a concurrent reduction in recidivism. To this end, the Cornmarket Project adds value to the work of the Probation Service by addressing issues of motivation, problem solving and skill building in offenders to diminish criminal behaviour and enhance resistance to substance misuse. The methodologies used by the project are underpinned by evidence-based behavioural interventions delivered by trained staff concentrating on enhancing client motivation for successful participation in the rehabilitation and reintegration programmes delivered by the project and for moving offenders towards other suitable external progression routes.

Enhancing offender motivation to make positive behavioural change lies at the heart of the work of the Cornmarket Project. I hope that at the conclusion of this session the committee will be better informed about our change outcome and impact measurement, COAIM, system, which is based on evidence-based intervention techniques for offender programmes which have shown demonstrable effects in other jurisdictions. The COAIM system uses unique evidence-based algorithms and metrics and was primarily developed to measure, and ultimately enhance, the determination to change in offenders who can very often be low in motivation when first referred. Research on effective offender rehabilitation interventions suggests many existing programmes target offenders who are already motivated to make positive change. However, a significant cohort of offenders needs a very structured motivational enhancement programme to enable them to get to this stage.

In this regard we know from previous submissions to the committee by the Irish Prison Service that young short-term prisoners have the highest rate of re-offending, and this has also been our experience over the past 14 years. In accepting this we can also point to a sub-category among this cohort of offenders with little or no motivation to change. We also suspect that this category of recidivist offender places a significant burden on the State in terms of costs associated with Garda, court, probation and prison services.

Tremendous work is being done by organisations working with offenders who are already motivated to make progress but if we do not also concentrate our efforts on those offenders who are harder to work with as they initially lack the motivation to make positive change we are likely to have a mismatch of resources in this area. This can lead to missed opportunities, particularly with regard to enhancing and maintaining motivation for positive change with this significant cohort of offenders with low motivation to do so.

As the committee is aware, an important new Irish research study undertaken jointly by the Probation Service and the CSO was published recently, and was the subject of an article in The Irish Times last Monday by Mr. Vivian Geiran, the director of the Probation Service. In this article, Mr. Geiran stated:

Clearly, custodial sentences are warranted for those who commit very serious crimes and who represent an ongoing danger to the public. However, it is extremely difficult to rehabilitate offenders through imprisonment alone. While prisoners deserve rehabilitative opportunities as well, offender rehabilitation programmes are most effective in reducing risk of reoffending when they are delivered in the community and target key risk factors.

The Cornmarket Project seeks to target this offender group through the provision of a community-based rehabilitation and reintegration programme which, through the use of the COAIM system, targets the main criminogenic antecedents in a very planned manner which in turn, encourages desistance from crime. At this stage I am talking not only about offenders who have been before the courts and who are on probation but also low-motivated ex-prisoners returning to the community and those who have found themselves in trouble again with the criminal justice system and who may well be on the road back to prison.

A strong driver for reliable assessment, monitoring and outcome measurement systems has been to satisfy funders and other decision makers. However, the COAIM system also recognises the importance of the offender's perspective and involvement in the measurement of their participation in rehabilitation and reintegration programmes, particularly as a motivational enhancement strategy. It is hard to ignore the issue of system integrity if offender input to the measurement of programme efficacy is excluded. Therefore, the COAIM system challenges conventional methods of measuring programme outcomes where the offender is the passive recipient of programmes and services and the deliverer of those services decides how beneficial they are or were for the offender.

The tools of the COAIM system are predicated on assessing, targeting and measuring factors that can be changed in the lives of offenders, known as dynamic factors. Those that cannot be changed are static factors and include prior record or family criminality. There is general agreement throughout the international research literature concerning the ten main dynamic or criminogenic target areas that need to be worked on with offenders in order to reduce recidivism. Committee members will already have these ten areas outlined in some sample documentation and tables that were supplied prior to today's meeting. Studies have shown that programmes that target four to six of these criminogenic risk factors more than non-criminogenic risk factors can have a 30% or more effect on recidivism while programmes that target more non-criminogenic risk factors have virtually no effect. This research also suggests that community based-programmes that demonstrate good evidence of effectiveness include evidence-based behavioural therapies, intensive case management, a multi-systemic approach and interpersonal skills training.

Historically the development of services for offenders in Ireland has not always been marked by adherence to best practice based on empirical evidence. Expediency, personal conviction and a sincere desire to do something to respond to anti-social behaviour and criminality in our communities have been more common drivers. However, policy development in Ireland in recent times concerning offender reintegration strategies seeks an increasing use of community options including non-custodial alternatives to prison and in suitable cases, the use of back-door strategies involving some form of early release while also seeking a reduction in expenditure. We suggest that the COAIM system that is at work in the Cornmarket Project, together with its range of tools, can assist in meeting these requirements and thus support the overall penal reform agenda.

We are now in a new era that presents both challenges and opportunities. We must develop new approaches and ways of working to meet the needs of today for the users of the services, the funders and the communities in which we all live. Those charged with effecting positive change regarding offender reintegration and rehabilitation are asked to demonstrate programme efficacy, value for money and evidence on client outcomes. Departments, funders and other stakeholders, including this committee, are increasingly seeking that credible and validated outcome-measuring systems are in place in State-funded organisations. We believe the system at work in the Cornmarket Project can help to fulfil these requirements. We hope our submission will make a positive contribution to the work of the Sub-Committee on Penal Reform and to the wider discussion on evidence-based best-practice rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for offenders.