Restorative Justice for All International Institute

Evaluating Social Action for Rehabilitation

EVALUATING SOCIAL ACTION FOR REHABILITATION

Building on our work on positive psychology and restorative justice, the Restorative Justice for All Institute (RJ4All) carried out a two year evaluation of Khulisa UK's intervention programmes in order to build an evidence base for further practice and solid theoretical development. The work is the result of a successful joint bid with Khulisa to the Rehabilitation Social Action Fund funded by the UK Cabinet Office.

THE EVALUATION PROJECT

RJ4All conducted quantiative and qualitative fieldwork with a sample group from two interventions, namely “Silence the Violence” and Milestones. These aim to reduce violence and anti-social behaviour through self-awareness and pro-social behaviour change. To achieve their goal, they utilize the Good Lives Models, which seeks to achieve the rehabilitation of offenders by nurturing their personal strengths and goals. We are testing this model as well as the programmes' effectiveness against the Cabinet Office's fund objectives. The research programme has received approval from the UK Ministry of Justice and in particular the National Research Committee of the National Offender Management Service.

EVALUATION METHODOLOGY

We applied a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Following desk research, we first applied a quantitative methodology through the collection of data directly from the participants - offenders. These were analysed at two phases. During the first phase, statistical analyses were conducted in SPSS, using the entire sample. Univariate analyses included descriptive statistics, such as frequency tables and measures of central tendency and dispersion, depending on the type of the variable under examination. Multivariate analyses included inferential statistics for the association of variables, such as crosstabulations, t-tests and regression analyses, depending on the type of the variables in question.

A triangulation of these findings was the carried out through:

Qualitative research that was carried out with financial support from Buckinghamshire New University and resources (in-kind and cash) from the Restorative Justice For All institute
A review of the Ministry of Justice Data lab
Control Groups that accessed with the support of the Prison National Offender Management Information System (p-NOMIS).

ETHICS AND STANDARDS

The RJ4All Institute as an independent evaluator and a research-based organisation ensures that ethical standards including the following are followed: