Using the ‘recovery’ and ‘rehabilitation’ paradigms to support desistence of substance-involved offenders: Exploration of dual and multi-focus interventions

Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice,Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2016. Purpose The links between substance use and offending are well evidenced in the literature, and increasingly, substance misuse recovery is being seen as a central component of the process of rehabilitation from offending, with substance use identified as a key criminogenic risk factor. In recent years, research has demonstrated the commonalities between recovery and rehabilitation, and the possible merits of providing interventions to substance-involved offenders that address both problematic sets of behaviours. This review paper therefore provides an overview of the links between substance use and offending, and the burgeoning literature around the parallel processes of recovery and rehabilitation. Design/methodology/approach This is provided as a rationale for a new treatment approach for substance-involved offenders, Breaking Free Online (BFO), which has recently been provided as part of the Gateways throughcare pathfinder in a number of prisons in North-West England. The BFO programme contains specific behaviour change techniques (BCTs) that are generic enough to be applied to change a wide range of behaviours, and so is able to support substance-involved offenders to address their substance use and offending simultaneously. Findings This dual and multi-target intervention approach has the potential to address multiple, associated areas of need simultaneously, streamlining service...

Source: Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice - October 16, 2016 Category: Criminology Source Type: research