Exploring collaboration within and between criminal justice and welfare systems: The perspective of front-line Liaison and Diversion workers

Abstract

Background and aims. Offender rehabilitation is a key strategy wielded by criminal justice system to engender reintegration of offenders into society (Armstrong, 2012; Ministry of Justice UK, 2013). As the vast majority of the prison population grapples with some sort of vulnerability (Sinha, 2010), judicious rehabilitation strategies have to address clusters of correlated needs and provide multifaceted solutions (Andrews & Bonta, 2016). To that end, the involvement of welfare services in the rehabilitation process has been suggested as a means to advance the state of the art forward (Hean, Warr, & Staddon, 2009; Strype, Gundhus, Egge, & Ødegård, 2014). In the England and Wales, the Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services assist specifically vulnerable offenders when they are first in contact with criminal justice system by diverting them, when commensurate, to health and other care services (James, 1999). As such, L&D’s objective is to engender integrated rehabilitative interventions orchestrated between criminal justice and welfare systems (Kodner & Spreeuwenberg , 2002). Over the past thirty years, L&D services have been locally funded and managed (Reed, 1992), but in 2014 the national government in England introduced a new model for the service. The policy, which among other goals pursues the standardisation of practice across the country, states that L&D services should facilitate integrated rehabilitative interventions between Criminal Justice System and Welfare Services to improve health and social care outcomes (NHS England Liaison and Diversion Programme, 2014). However, the challenges of policy implementation (Fuglsang, 2010; Lipsky, 2010; Lippke & Wegener, 2014) as well as practice standardization (Clarke, 2013; Hill & Huppe, 2014) are widely discussed in the literature, and the introduction of a new national model for L&D services is engrossed in these discussions. Thus, the aim of this study is to respond the over-arching question: How is interagency collaboration between L&D and neighbouring services perceived by street-level L&D workers after the introduction of a new national model for Liaison & Diversion? In order to investigate the role of L&D services as a conduit of interagency collaboration across criminal justice and welfare systems upon the introduction of the new national model, the aim of this study has been operationalized through two research questions, as follows: I. How members of the Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services perceive their role as facilitators of interagency collaboration across criminal justice and welfares systems in light of the standardized guidelines introduced by the new national model? II. What are the main contradictions encountered by L&D front-line workers? The focus on the perspective of front-line workers is due to an existent proclivity for the studies on interagency collaboration to focus on the organisational/service level rather than the standpoint of front-line professionals (Disley et al., 2016; Parker, et al., 2018). Thus, this research attempts to contribute to filling an empirical gap in the study of prearrest/pre-sentence models of collaboration in light of the perspective of front-line workers. Theoretical framework and research design. The research builds upon a theoretical framework that is, by and large, predicated on Activity Theory to make sense of the street-level interactions between criminal justice and welfare services. Since the overlap between interagency collaboration and street-level bureaucracy is still relatively underexplored (Hupe, 2014; Hupe & Hill, 2016), this research also contributes to filling a theoretical gap in both kinds of literature by investigating the impact of street-level interagency collaboration on policy implementation. The study drew upon a representative qualitative case study (Yin, 2009) deployed with the goal “to capture the circumstances and conditions of an everyday or commonplace situation” (Yin, 2009, p. 48). The case study focused on collaboration through the perspective of front-line L&D professionals as well as workers from neighbouring organisations in criminal justice and welfare systems. Data analysis followed a template analysis method (King, 2012). Findings. The results of the study provided the following evidence: ���� A utilitarian approach to policy implementation. L&D front-line workers grapple with equating are embroiled with the implementation of standardised rules in light of local contingencies. Consequently, they develop coping mechanisms to equate policy and reality. ���� Fragmented IT systems hamper agencies to dovetail their strategies. Each organisation runs independent information technology (IT) systems (primary communication tool in the context studied) that are impervious to other agencies, which renders interagency collaboration intractable. ���� Interpersonal relations to square organisations’ goals with a system of subpar quality. Front-line workers have strived to establish interpersonal relationships in order to circumvent systemic limitations and promote collaboration. In light of the findings, the over-arching question posed in this study can be briefly responded as follows: How is interagency collaboration between L&D and neighbouring services perceived by street-level L&D workers after the introduction of a new national model for Liaison & Diversion?