Our ‘Know This’ briefings are a regular note to alert colleagues to recent discussions happening in the sectors relevant to our work. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of major changes and developments in our sectors. If you see anything you think needs to be in a future bulletin, let us know at PracticeResearchUnit@interventionsalliance.co.uk and we will include it in the next edition.

The murder of Annabel Rook  

Last week, papers and social media were flooded with the tragic news of the murder of Annabel Rook, as a suspected ‘domestic related incident’. See here for LBCs coverage and here for BBC coverage).   

• Annabel co-founded MamaSuze (Women | Mamasuze | London) – an organisation set up to enhance the lives of survivors of forced displacement and gender-based violence  

• The murder of yet another woman in a domestic-related incident (with the suspect in this instance, being a 44-year old man) is devastating, and a sad addition to the already highly concerning rates of femicide in the UK – and indeed, across the globe. It is perhaps especially so, given Annabel’s life-work in seeking to protect survivors of gender-based violence.   

Some links and reports to consider:  

• The femicide census – new report March 2025 2000-Women-full-report.pdf  

• The work of Jude Wall, Cardiff Met University, researching femicide – I (Kerry) met Jude at a conference this weekend, and her work was deeply affecting. Here are some links:  

• Murdered women championed by shallow grave photos – BBC News  

• 2025 | Cardiff Met lecturer embarks on photography project to remember murdered women | Cardiff Metropolitan University  

Sentencing Review  

Last month (22nd May), the Government published its Sentencing Review (link to report here), outlining the direction of policy for criminal justice. Led by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, the review was conceived with the following Terms of Reference:   

• That sentences must ‘punish offenders’ and ‘protect the public’ – noting that there must ‘always be space in prison for the most dangerous offenders’  

• That sentences must encourage individuals to ‘turn their backs on a life of crime’, cutting crime by reducing reoffending  

• That the system must ‘expand’ and ‘make greater use of punishment outside of prison’  

Key points from the report:  

• Goal to reduce the prison population by 9,800.  

• The Probation Service “already under great strain” will experience even greater burden.  

• Non-custodial options argued as punitive as short custodial sentences, requiring ‘offenders’ comply with a range of obligations over a much longer period, restricting their liberty and constraining their behaviour.  

• The role of technology, particularly from a punishment and compliance perspective.   

• Of note: Though only one of 48 recommendations, Gauke’s move to “build a comprehensive evidence base” around the use of chemical suppression for sex offenders took up much of the news column inches on the review.    

What IA colleagues can take from this:  

Supported Accommodation / Approved Premises (main section is chapter 4.5)  

• A lack of supply of short-term accommodation can mean individuals are being held longer in custody, taking up space in prison.  

• Investment in the community necessary to successfully deliver more intensive supervision as part of more tailored and graduated step down from custody  

• Investment in additional Community Accommodation Service (CAS) including Approved Premises provision would be required to support supervision, particularly at levels 2/3 if curfews are deemed a necessary risk management tool, and the person has no fixed address.  

Behaviour change (main section is chapter 5.4 until the end of the chapter)  

• Multi-agency input may enhance work undertaken by Probation Service to assess risk (the DA Commissioner reported examples of specialist services being involved in the development of pre-sentence reports as “promising”)  

• Interventions, such as accredited offender behaviour programmes, must be effective and that the Probation Service has the necessary resources to deliver them.   

• HMIP’s 2023 thematic report on DA found that 45% of those in their case sample should have had access to an intervention but had not.   

• The Review says these programmes must be more widely available, with better national data on referrals to help Government understand the quality of programme delivery.  

• The Review referenced the Drive Project as example of effective multi-agency practice.   

• The initiative is formed by Respect, SafeLives and Social Finance, a DA intervention programme that aims to reduce the number of child and adult victims by disrupting and changing perpetrator behaviour, working with perpetrators who have been assessed by the multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC) referral pathway as posing a high-harm, high-risk of domestic abuse.    

Identified needs of offenders, custody and community, 31 October 2024  

On June 12th, the government released a statistical digest to help better understand the needs of offenders who receive custody and community disposals (you can access the digest here). The main takeaways from the release were:    

• There were nine areas of need looked at which were; accommodation, employability, relationships, lifestyle and associates, drug misuse, alcohol misuse, drug misuse, mental health, employability, accommodation, relationships, thinking & behaviour, attitudes and lifestyle & associates. Of those with a Layer 3 OAsys assessment (the cohort used in the research), people in custody had higher rates of identified needs across eight out of the nine need areas. The largest difference was seen in those with an identified accommodation need where those in custody had a far higher accommodation need.   

• Lifestyle and associates as a need was identified most commonly in both custody and closely followed by attitudes and thinking and behaviour.  

• The least identified need for both custody and community was alcohol misuse   

• The trend across all nine needs was an increase in need  

Psychological Safety in Teams  

Finally, while not in the news, an important and topical issue for colleagues to discuss or reflect on – a new article by PRU Senior Researcher Jess Lawrence outlines the important topic of Psychological Safety in Teams (you can access the article in the colleague information hub here)  

• This paper builds on the findings from our previous research with trans people in community justice settings  

• It discusses the need for staff to feel psychologically safe in their work environments, on an interpersonal, group and structural level, in order to feel safe to ask questions, and make (and learn from) mistakes. 
  
• Examples are given of how staff learned and sought support when working with trans clients.