Advanced Practitioner/PC 2745 Dominique Walker Dominique.v.walker@Merseyside.police.uk

1. ‘Promoting Human dignity’ (PHD): a Practitioner’s perspective on interventions for racially motivated offenders Advanced Practitioner/PC 2745 Dominique Walker Dominique.v.walker@Merseyside.police.uk d.v.walker@ljmu.ac.uk

2. INTRODUCTION • Title: Original title was ‘What works with race hate crime offenders?’: A Critical Evaluation of Promoting Human Dignity (PHD), A programme for racially motivated offenders • This changed to ‘Promoting Human Dignity: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Interventions for Racially Motivated Offenders • This project will set out to research findings into the capacity to rehabilitate individuals convicted of racially motivated offences • Focus on Merseyside Community Rehabilitation Company staff • Consisted of 5 interviews with Merseyside CRC PHD programme staff, a DVD analysis of sessions and analysis of the PHD Manual • Personal reasons for the research project- Anthony Walker • Initially, I wanted to create a programme for race hate offenders, I clearly had delusions of grandeur!!!!

3. Background • Against Human Dignity (AHD) was originally developed as a 15 week, one to one programme for racially motivated offenders, as a response to the provisions for racially motivated offences in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which represented the first recognition of ‘hate crime’ in British Criminal Law. (Smith, D and Palmer, J 2010: 368) • Programme was created by a working group within Merseyside Probation • The Programmes name echoed a phrase used in French Parliament to describe racism • In 2006, the programme was revamped by Doug Watkins and Ian Hutchinson and changed to a 14 week group programme, after initial evaluations of the one to one programme and in 2008, the programme name was changed to Promoting Human Dignity (PHD) which was believed conveyed a more positive message and gave a better indication of what the programme sought to achieve (Smith, D and Palmer, J 2010:369) • Purpose of PHD is to change minds and reduce race hate crime offending

4. Importance to Criminal justice system • I came across PHD after conducting a investigation into a public order incident and had to inform the victim that the perpetrator got a fine and had to participate on this programme. • In 2014/2015, there were 42,930 (82%) race hate crimes committed in the UK. It is the most common committed hate crime offence...this is rising!!! • HM Government (2012, 2016) ‘Challenge it, Report it, Stop it’, report states: • “To improve the operational response to hate crimes - by better identifying and managing cases, and dealing effectively with offenders.” • This is clearly not being done across the UK, PHD along with ‘Can you hear bigots sing?’ (Scotland) , Diversity Awareness and Prejudice Pack (London), Smile Mediation Hate Crime Awareness Programme (Burnley), Think Again (Yorkshire) and The Challenge Hate Crime Project (Northern Ireland) • Seem to be the only programmes that deal with this issue…This is obviously not enough considering the amount of race hate crime across the UK… and hate crime in general!

5. Research methods • 5 semi-structured interviews with PHD Merseyside CRC Staff- Mr P, Mr F, Ms C, Ms D and Ms G (anonymised for confidentiality) • All interviews were transcribed, and then focused coding was used to collate the information • Focused coding- general grouping of key themes, due to amount of data in the interviews • DVD Analysis of PHD in 2014, notes made on sessions mentioned by practitioners- 1, 2, 8, 9 • Looked at PHD Theory Manual and PHD Session Manual • Time, be realistic, more interviews, more transcribing and coding!!!!

6. Findings • Findings were collated into categories: • The Creation of PHD • ‘Can we Promote Human Dignity’? • ‘You want Probation on the Cheap, You’re going to get cheap probation!’; The future of PHD: Accreditation, Evaluation and Development • Conclusion and recommendations

7. The creation of phd • “When it was first announced, it was done on one-to-one basis, however knowing what I know now about it, it definitely works better as a group. Because I have done it myself one-to-one for people’s individuals needs and I feel that they don’t get the benefit of exploring things and being that peer challenger for other people, which is much better” (Ms G) • “The main aim of the programme is to challenge discriminatory thinking and to stop offenders committing further hate crimes” (Mr P) • “I remember, this way back then, I said to one of my managers, “Why are we not doing anything about hate crimes? So I’ve always had that and I remember being told by a manager “We wouldn’t put something like that together because what you’d do is form a branch of the British movement, the BNP whoever". "I was blocked and blocked and blocked, I don’t know, I can theorise as to why, and it something to do with egos. And I’ve got an ego, but I think PHD should be nationwide. I think it should be potentially international and there was some interest from overseas and it got quashed, Unbelievable!” (Mr F)

8. The Creation of PHD • “There is an obvious shortfall in the amount of referrals in a year, compared to the amount of incidents; PHD is covering possibly 1% of race hate/hate crime offenders” (Mr P) • “Because they’re not given time. They are allocated time and it is as simple as that…And how can they roll with resistance? Rolling with resistance requires quite a lot of knowledge. Applying those REBT principles to your delivery style requires a lot of knowledge and understanding of how that works. Two half days or whatever, it does not amount to it. (Mr F) • “There is no specific training in the way of race studies, or theories of race. PHD Management believe it can be overwhelming and are times come across as preachy” (Mr P) • “It doesn’t actually say “This is what a hate crime is”, However when we’ve delivered it we’d look at the acceptable and unacceptable language, we would always include what is a hate crime, because I don’t think people know what it is” (Ms G)

9. The Creation of PHD • “They’re all very highly aroused on the first sessions and we have to roll with, I think a lot of resistance. And “I shouldn’t be here and all that” (Ms G) • “We had a fellow, in session eight, we were doing the life chart and you put at the top what the offence was and then you go right back down to when they were a baby and you talk them gently through their life. “When did you first hear a racist term? The N Word, The P word?. And take them back through their life. And this guy was really good and honest and open which is an art itself, the tutor, the other fellow and this bloke was just crying his eyes out and so he goes “What’s really going on, what’s the matter?” And he goes “I’ve been fucking mugged” and he saw his whole life as he’d been mugged into these beliefs” (Mr F) • Group members asserted the following: • “I grew up with a violent dad, who was very racist, when I went to school; there was only one black kid in there” (GM) • “My Dad was not a racist, but used racist words, when watching the footie” (GM) • “Growing up ‘Paki Shop’, you thought was the norm” (GM) • “Our generation, our society made us racist” (GM)

10. ‘Can we promote human dignity?’ • “But one guy who came in and did the life maps exercise, he was around different ethnicities his whole life. However, he’d had some negative experiences along the way. He Said “I didn’t realise that, that would impact me later on”. He’d been accused of being racist and things like this along the way. He’d been in the majority and then he’d been in the minority as the white child in a predominately-black area, found it fine, but then he said “I knew then, automatically, I knew what would be offensive straight away. He knew, and I said “Do you think that plays a part? He Said “I didn’t until I looked at it now” (Mr F) • “Which gets me thinking, that it’s almost creating a white safe space to talk about these things. Sometimes I think we don’t have that in society but then sometimes I think well, we do. But then it always gets to the point where it goes over the hill and becomes UKIP. So it’s like where in society do we create those spaces that…Yes, where it is safe to just talk” (Ms G)

11. ‘Can we Promote human dignity?’ • “I do find them useful; I particularly find looking at the cycle and I think a lot of people do relate to that. You know, can you break the cycle, Who can break the cycle? It’s you now” (Ms G) • “So REBT encourages people to be kind of selfish and go “Well I’ve got to look after number one, because if number one starts getting it alright, and starts reaching a good state of living, all the people around me will benefit from that”. There are eight principles and I just thought they were brilliant and so that underpins it. It’s not directly delivered, but it underpins the delivery” (Mr F) • “Some are more rigid, who are working in that sort of-some are more rigid because they feel they are disadvantaged. I think disadvantage breeds resentment to this and I think the media, the TV and everything” (Ms G) • The notion of ‘one dimensional’ is a taken from the critical social theorist Herbert Marcuse. He asserted the concept of one dimensional ‘as a conforming to existing thought and behaviour and lacking a critical dimension of potentialities that transcend the existing society’ (Kellner, D 1964)

12. “If you want Probation on the cheap, You’re going to get cheap probation!” • “To do a decent evaluation, first of all, I don’t know if I’m even qualified to do it. I think you need to have an academic background of support in order to do an effective evaluation. And so the levels of evaluation that we had were kind of anecdotal really, or the re-conviction rate. And on the hoof evaluation, “How does this work? Should we change it”, So that was the level of evaluation really, I would say” (Mr F) • “I think we will have more programmes running. If they invest in it, as in the tutors putting it on, promoting it. I think it will have more sessions of it. Because I think, there is a demand for it. I think there is a demand and I think it’s not being utilised to its potential” (Ms G) • “It’s not an accredited programme. It’s not as cash linked, which is a horrible way to think about it, but the way CRC is at the minute, everything has cost and a worth and value attached to it. The accredited programmes are were all of our revenue comes in and that’s what keeps us going, the non-accredited stuff, it has a smaller revenue, so the drive is for accredited programmes” (Mr P) • “It was a conversation that we had; I was quite for it being accredited. But other people not so much. The reason it is not accredited is because we would lose a lot of the control over the programme and it would become owned by NOMS and then they could make changes to it and we would have no say in it. It would end up becoming something we didn’t want it to be. That’s one of the reasons we kept it to maintain some programme integrity. Programme integrity is one of the main things” (Mr P)

13. “If you want Probation on the cheap, You’re going to get cheap probation!” • “I do, really worry, our programme staff, in a way you could call them niche operators, they were specialists, and they now case carry and do programmes. I think it’s really difficult to do both. It’s evidently causing great difficulties, it was part of the reasons, I had to leave. I don’t think its clever and a massive part of the problem was our manager didn’t believe in accredited programmes. Didn’t think they were effective or worthwhile” (Mr F) • “And we were decreased, we used to have 700 on Merseyside, we’re down to about 400 now, so it doesn’t make sense. It’s about probation on the cheap. You want probation on the cheap. You’re going to get cheap probation” (Mr F) • “I haven’t got any cases at the moment, touch wood. However, they will be coming. I think it’s about prioritising. I think it going to be difficult, I’m not going to lie, because what do you say…Do I do a recall on someone or breach, or do I go and go to my group” (Ms G)

14. Conclusion and Recommendations… • Adopting a multi-dimensional approach, within a field of contradictory discourses, will allow for practitioners to be better equipped to effectively engage with and ultimately challenge and change these racially motivated offenders behaviour (Mc Ghee 2007:218) • Consultation process with PHD staff in conjunction with this research project to finalise the redevelopment of PHD • Comprehensive evaluation and development of the PHD programme • Training for PHD team on race, racism and other theories (CBT, REBT, SLT, FANI, MI), 4-7days • Redevelopment and redesign of PHD Manuals- (theoretical manual, PHD manual, staff training manual) with insertion of digital media formats • Accreditation of PHD • Implementation of a race equality and hate crime strategy that underpins the development of a new PHD programme.

15. ANY QUESTIONS…