Projecten

POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Detention in essence

For the development of the penitentiary policy of the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency, Nelissen R&D and co-authors wrote the report Detention in Essence on the pillars and objectives of custodial sentences or measures. Detention in Essence addresses the question of how and by which considerations the application of  custodial sentences or measures should be guided in a democracy and under the rule of law. The report can also be used as a relatively timeless compass for all those who are involved in the policy and practice of custodial criminal justice responses in the constitutional state.

Client: Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency, 2007. Authors: Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen, Dr. A. A. van den Hurk, A.J.G. Daans

Probation, about the why, what and how

This document is an extension of the implementation of the van Velzen Motion (2007) in which the House of Representatives of the Netherlands instructs the State Secretary of Justice to combat bureaucracy within probation and to increase the professional space of the probation officer. During the implementation of this Motion by the three probation organizations in the form of a pilot project, the need arose for a document which clearly defines the profession of probation. On behalf of the Steering Group of the van Velzen Motion, the profession was defined by means of an answer to the question of:  The Why, What and How of probation.

Client: 3RO (the three Probation Organizations). Authors: Dr. Peter Nelissen and Dr. Bas Vogelvang

Probation, about the why, what and how

This document is an extension of the implementation of the van Velzen Motion (2007) in which the House of Representatives of the Netherlands instructs the State Secretary of Justice to combat bureaucracy within probation and to increase the professional space of the probation officer. During the implementation of this Motion by the three probation organizations in the form of a pilot project, the need arose for a document which clearly defines the profession of probation. On behalf of the Steering Group of the van Velzen Motion, the profession was defined by means of an answer to the question of:  The Why, What and How of probation.

Client: 3RO (the three Probation Organizations). Authors: Dr. Peter Nelissen and Dr. Bas Vogelvang

EVALUATION RESEARCH

Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen, Rehabilitation and Detention, dissertation, Maastricht University, 2000

This dissertation examines the thinking and actions of both prisoners and prison staff with regard to rehabilitation or resocialization. Their attitudes towards resocialization are related to specific personal and environmental determinants. Attention to resocialization during the execution of the custodial sentence is an important achievement of a decent criminal justice system in a democracy under the rule of law. Because punishment is imposed, facilities must be provided during detention with which prisoners can adequately prepare their return to society. The contribution of these penitentiary, intramural facilities to a better, more socially inclusieve life without recidivism is, however, highly dependent on the extramural follow-up in terms of good aftercare after release from detention. After all, reintegration does not take place in prison, but always outside the cell, in free society.

Starting Inside and Staying Outside with the Link Project

This report describes the results of an evaluation research project that ran between 2000 and 2003. It concerns an evaluation study with a quasi-experimental design into the effectiveness of a resocialization program for prisoners that since 1995 has focused on reducing recidivism by mediation to education and work, intensive probation assistance and cognitive and behavioral training. The program, also known as the Schakel Project, appears to be effective, it contributes to less recidivism and a successful return to society. The active components of the intervention and the factors that influence stopping or continuing with crime were also examined. Findings from life-course criminology and desistance theory were used for this. The differences between successful and less successful participants were also mapped out through qualitative research.

Client: Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency, 2003. Author: Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen

The connecting factor

This research report describes the results of a collaborative project between the prison and regional partners (municipalities, healthcare, housing corporations, other partners of the criminal justice system) in interventions for short-term prisoners who often have a criminal career as frequent offenders. The custodial institution in question developed the life-course approach together with Nelissen R&D, as an important element in the change model of the intervention. This life-course approach ensures that detention is used more as a moment to look back (analysis of the history of care, offences and detentions) and to look ahead (preparing a seamless transition to and continuation of care from extramural facilities). It appears that thanks to the intervention in question the facilities for the pre-release preparation of the return into society during detention become more focused on ensuring better throughcare, aftercare en prevention of relapse.

Client: Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency, 2007 Author: Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen

Hold on and never let go

This research report contains the final report on the development and effectiveness of the Limburg Safety Houses and the approach to crime and nuisance. The research shows that the Safety House as a form of cooperation in public services has a clear added value. Through the emancipation of the implementation practice (‘tools around the work, instead of work around the tools’), it provides public services with a greater degree of involvement and impact in tackling complex, multilevel problems of both offenders and citizens. The results of this evaluation research project of the Safety Houses are a welcome addition to the central government's (safety) policy. After all, they provide a basis for the further development of central and decentralized safety policies under the rule of law with its own, reliable and convincing (procedural justice)  face towards citizens and offenders in tackling complex social problems.

Client: Program Management of the Safety Houses Limburg, 2010 Author: Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen

Thoughts, feelings, perceptions and behaviour in the context of daily life in detention and the training Choose for Change

This research report reports on a study into thoughts, feelings, perception and behaviour in the context of daily life in detention and the training Choose for Change. The research was carried out in the autumn of 2013 by order of the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency  and the Modernisation of the Prison System Programme by Nelissen Research & Development in collaboration with the Open University of the Netherlands. The training Choose for Change (KvV) based on the resocialisation model Stop Crime (Nelissen & Schreurs, 2008) is one of the instruments that is used in particular in the context of the pursuit of a constructive prison social  environment or climate. The way in which this research into daily perceptions of detainees was carried out can be considered unique. Namely, the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used. As far as is known, the Experience Sampling Method has never been applied to a detainee population before. ESM asks respondents to write down their thoughts, feelings, symptoms, context and perception of the context in their everyday life. The prisoners in this study with a quasi-experimental design were given a watch for this purpose, which emits a beep signal at random times during the day. At that moment they were asked to write down their sensations in terms of positive and negative affect, self-esteem, self-efficacy and social support. Prisoners reported their sensations by means of a structured diary.

The results of this study can be summarized as follows. With the necessary caution, it can be concluded that the KvV training seems to have added value for a constructive detention environment. This added value is probably related to the adjustment process to life in prison and to a prisonization process. After all, this process can put pressure on the motivation of prisoners to proactively take responsibility and becoming more able to live a fulfilling and crime-free life.  In general prisonization effects tends to strengthen the tendency of prisoners to let things take their course and promote a process of discouragement with regard to the option of change. The KvV training seems to intervene in this adjustment process. Intervention by the training includes inviting prisoners to seriously reflect on their thoughts and feelings about what has happened in their lives and how life will be in the near future. The training teaches them to attach positive and resilient consequences to this process of reflection which results in the participant group, compared to the waiting list control group, in the experience of more social support, a greater decrease in criminal motivation and more growth in willingness to change.

Clients: Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency and the Prison Modernization Program. Authors: Peter Nelissen, Johan Lataster, Nele Jacobs and Marie-Louise Schreurs, 2014

METHODOLOGY AND INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT

Compass for the Safety Houses Limburg

This book is a guideline to support the implementation of the Safety Houses Limburg. The Safety House focuses on tackling crime and nuisance caused by certain groups of perpetrators. These groups have been selected based on their share in the experienced nuisance and crime. It appears that a small group of perpetrators is responsible for a relatively large share in the experienced nuisance and crime. An effective, coordinated approach to crime and nuisance via an integrated safety program is an important characteristic of the (Limburg) Safety Houses. This book is a guideline to support the design and the implementation of the approach to crime and nuisance by the Safety Houses Limburg. It provides information about the mission and objectives, target groups, partners, the proposed approach, organizational structure, methodology and evaluation plan.

 Client: Program Management Safety Houses Limburg, 2007. Author: Dr. P. Ph. Nelissen

Giving Up Crime: Resocialization Model, Methodology and Workbook

"To the extent that the social environment provides for the nurturance of perceptions of competence, autonomy and relatedness, the person will move toward integration and a unified sense of self, and develop the personal resources for engaging in adaptive and autonomous self-regulation of behavior.” (Markland et al. 2005, p.818)

In 2008, the personal workbook for prisoners Giving Up Crime was published. This workbook was developed by Nelissen R&D to allow (ex) prisoners to work proactively on their return and reintegration into society as much as possible. The workbook is an important instrument of the resocialization model Giving Up Crime (GUC) which has an unique theoretical approach.  It emphasizes the promotion of the process of desistance from crime through self-determination, that is, through strengthening autonomy, improving competence (self-efficacy) and restoring or strengthening relationships. In 2011, this resocialization model was introduced in Dutch prisons after a pilot phase for the vast majority of prisoners with short sentences.

The etiological assumptions of GUC are derived from criminological theory and (motivational) theories from social psychology and life course psychology. They in particular focus on the most important components of motivation (subjective value of goals, expectancies and attribution)  and the role of motivational processes (motivational self-regulation) in the development of criminal careers. A distinction is made between the emergence and growth  of criminal motivation in developmental paths of increasing criminal involvement and the growth of (autonomous) motivation for change in developmental paths of declining criminality (desistance). It is argued that developmental trajectories of growing criminal motivation and increasing criminal involvement  are rooted in a stagnant or disturbed process of self-determination through prosocial means.   As a compensatory response, offenders become attracted to crime and then their criminal motivation gradually develops. Criminal motivation (and motivational self-regulation) has an important function, it helps (chronic) offenders to maintain  a  positive, but substitute or illusory  sense of primary control and self-determination through wrong, criminal means.​

Because a  life in crime sooner or later leads to increasing burdens, the dismantling of human and social capital and a growing fear of permanent loss of connection with significant others, criminal involvement gradually loses its compensatory appeal and functionality.​

In developmental pathways of decreasing criminality and desistance, a prosocial process of self-determination then develops, wherein (informal) social support from prosocial, significant others ultimately provides a significant impetus for personal growth in terms of increased autonomous motivation for change, positive changes in  competencies (self-efficacy) and  connectedness (social capital).​ Motivational development (or motivational self-regulation) in pathways out of crime involve the important selective control strategy of helping offenders to stay on the chosen track of personal change and desistance under, almost by definition, challenging conditions.

Motivational self-regulation in developmental pathways of both increasing and decreasing criminality is by no means a situational and irrelevant phenomenon. On the contrary, the reviewed literature shows that the way offenders deal in a motivational sense with significant life events, challenges, and obstacles is a powerful, mediating socio-cognitive causal force that drives and supports both attraction to a life in crime and liberation from it.

The theoretical foundations and etiological assumptions of GUC are operationalized through a practice framework or intervention logic using three main concepts of the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), structure, autonomy and relatedness.

Commissioned by the Scientific Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Justice and Security (WODC), the theoretical basis, the effectiveness of the resocialization model and its instruments (workbook and short training Choose for Change) were evaluated in 2016 by Impact, a research and consultancy agency. Application in (all) Dutch prisons shows positive outcomes for detainees in terms of reduction of criminal motivation, growth of (autonomous) motivation for change, growth in skills and well-being in the form of experienced support from others. The use of the workbook with support from prison staff (mentorship) and/or peers also contributes to a better detention and working environment. The GUC resocialization model and its methodology are now also being applied abroad.

Training Sentence Planning (Trainer manual)

In 2015, Nelissen Research & Development developed an English-language training course on detention and reintegration planning for the prison system on behalf of the Council of Europe. The three-day training consists of 12 sessions that address the question of the why, what and how of detention and reintegration planning in prisons. During the sessions, important themes are discussed, such as the resocialization principle and system of minimum restrictions in (inter)national penitentiary law, findings from life-course criminology, desistance theory, contemporary resocialization models and the various professional skills of the case manager who carries out the planning.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

In 2015, Nelissen Research & Development developed an English-language training course on detention and reintegration planning for the prison system on behalf of the Council of Europe. The three-day training consists of 12 sessions that address the question of the why, what and how of detention and reintegration planning in prisons. During the sessions, important themes are discussed, such as the resocialization principle and system of minimum restrictions in (inter)national penitentiary law, findings from life-course criminology, desistance theory, contemporary resocialization models and the various professional skills of the case manager who carries out the planning.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

In 2021 and 2022, Nelissen R&D developed a fully English-language train-the-trainer program for the training of prison staff for the Council of Europe and has extensive (inter)national experience with training and education of judicial staff and supervision of bachelor's and master's students.