Activity and approach

Skills for Justice worked with partners at RAND Europe and Get the Data to conduct a study of how police in England and Wales use Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs) to support adults with health-related vulnerabilities, such as challenges with their mental health, substance misuse, or neurodiversity.

The goals of the study were to:

  1. Give a better understanding of the current scale and use of OOCDs with relevant conditions for adults with mental health and other health vulnerabilities.
  2. Identify relevant intervention services currently used by police forces as OOCD conditions for adults with health vulnerabilities.
  3. Identify gaps in local intervention services.
  4. Enable evidence-informed decision-making by sharing findings on approaches to identify health vulnerabilities and deploy health-related OOCD conditions.
  5. Provide guidance for police forces on effective practice for accessing existing services.
  6. Enable police to improve data capture for this group of offenders, including on specific conditions attached to OOCDs.

The research team then worked with seven police forces to develop a basis for practice change and to improve the data collection methods used to monitor the use of OOCDs and enable future research on their effectiveness.

Outcomes

The final report was published on 12 September 2024.

Access the final report

 

Some of the key findings included:

  • There was significant variation across forces in England and Wales in their OOCD process, and differences in how well developed and embedded these processes are within other aspects of police work.
  • That OOCDs were underused in many forces owing to resource constraints and an absence of systems and processes in place to manage referrals and monitor conditions attached to disposals.
  • There were significant gaps in the availability of interventions to meet the needs of vulnerable offenders.
  • Force-level challenges in making best use of OOCDs included limited training on OOCD use, staff turnover, high proportions of inexperienced officers, and disproportionality in who receives OOCDs.
  • At the frontline operational level, limited use of vulnerability assessments in the OOCD process and limited input from Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services were also widely reported.
  • The existence of a dedicated OOCD team or independent entity was associated with strong and consistently applied OOCD processes.

A training guide was developed by Skills for Justice to help forces support officers and decision makers. It sits alongside other resources to assist in setting OOCD conditions addressing health vulnerabilities, and to support higher-level decision makers in implementing OOCD processes.

The guide is built to be adapted by forces to reflect their local operating context. It is freely available for use and access by police forces across England and Wales.

Access the guide - English Access the guide - Welsh

 

Other guides:

All materials are being utilised across England and Wales to help police forces take an evidence-based approach to Out of Court Disposals and evaluate their training provision.

Get in touch to find out more about our research and evaluation services.