Farrington Slides

8/13/2019 Farrington Slides

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Social exclusion and crime

PROFESSOR DAVID FARRINGTON

Professor of Psychological CriminologyCambridge University


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Influence of Research on Policy: RiskFactors and Risk-Focussed Prevention

David Farrington

Cambridge University

AcSS Seminar

June 29, 2011


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Risk-Focussed Prevention

l Identify key risk factors for offending and implement

prevention techniques designed to counteract them

l Identify key protective factors and implement

techniques designed to enhance them

l Public health method. For example:

l Key risk factors for coronary heart disease include

smoking, a fatty diet, lack of exercise

l Therefore, encourage people to stop smoking, eat

more healthily, take more exercise

l Easily understandable to everyone


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Knowledge about Risk Factors

l Risk factors are defined as variables that predict a

high rate of offending

l They are established most convincingly in

longitudinal surveys that follow up people from

childhood to adulthood

l I direct the Cambridge Study in Delinquent

Development, which is a prospective longitudinalsurvey of 411 London males from age 8 to age 48-

50 in records and in repeated personal interviews


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Risk Factors for Offending

l According to the Cambridge Study, the most

important risk factors include:

l High hyperactivity/impulsiveness/daring

l Low intelligence/attainment

l Poor parental supervision

l Harsh/erratic parental disciplinel Low family income/poor housing

l Separation from a parent

l Criminal parents/delinquent siblings/delinquent peers


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Effective Interventions

l Effective interventions to tackle these risk factors in childhood

include: Nurse home visiting programmes

l Parent management trainingl Pre-school intellectual enrichment programmes

l Cognitive-behavioural skills training

l In adolescence include: Treatment foster care

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Multi-systemic therapyl Communities That Care

l Functional family therapy

l Mentoring programmes


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A Long History

l Who Becomes Delinquent (1973) -- cited over 900 times

according to Google Scholar identified key risk factors and

recommended programmes to tackle them, but withoutsupporting evidence

l During the 1970s, the Home Office believed that nothing

works based on Martinson (1974) and Brody (1976)

l During the 1980s, the Home Office focussed on

physical/situational crime preventionl It is always a problem to change the repeated focus of

politicians on retribution, deterrence and incapacitation (which

they think the public want)


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A Long History (continued)

l Implications of longitudinal studies for social prevention

(1986) not only identified key risk factors but was also able to

cite some evidence on effective interventions to tackle theml Home Office minister John Patten (1989): the Cambridge Study

has been influential both in this country and in the United

States It is an excellent example of how academic work,

funded by government, can help in policy-making This work

is evidence of the importance of responsible parenting inpreventing crime. Its findings bear out the idea that the family

is the first and most appropriate line of defence against

delinquency. I will be examining Dr. Farringtons conclusions,

and their pointers towards future action, very carefully indeed.


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Paul Rocks Analysis of Home

Office Policy-Making in 1991

l There was one article in particular [Farrington & West, 1990] that

circulated about the [Home] Office at just that time, an article that had

again made out the case for using longitudinal studies to predict and

control delinquency, and for social prevention experiments to prevent

the development of crime and antisocial behaviour. These could begin

by targeting three important predictors of offending that may be both

causal and modifiable: economic deprivation, school failure and poor

parental child-rearing behaviour. An official remarked of Farringtons

influence: There is a theory for a particular time and maybe what he issaying is just one of the things that particularly suit at the moment.

Moreover, criminality prevention was attractive precisely because it

was so new. [italics in original] It was a break from the secondary

crime prevention of target-hardening and opportunity reduction whose

experimental and political half-life was deemed to have expired

(Rock, 1994, pp. 150-151).


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Early Prevention in the 1990s

l 1991: I made the main speech at a lunch organised by Home

Secretary Kenneth Baker, advocating risk-focussed prevention

l Paul Rock (1994, p. 153): the Home Secretary was said tohave become fired by what he had heard of the Cambridge

cohort study.

l The Home Office was then developing a Green Paper on early

prevention but I was told that it was killed by Kenneth Clarke,

who was worried about criticism of the nanny state in the run-up to the 1992 general election.

l As the 1997 general election approached, a Green Paper on

Preventing Children Offending was eventually released by the

Conservative Government in March 1997.


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Labours 1997 Green Paper and

the Crime & Disorder Act 1998

l Labour then won the general election in May 1997, and many of the

proposals in the Conservative Green Paper were included in Labours

November 1997 White Paper entitled No More Excuses.

l There was a great emphasis on prevention: There will be a new

focus on nipping crime in the bud stopping children at risk from

getting involved in crime and preventing early criminal behaviour from

escalating into persistent or serious offending (Home Office,

1997,p.2).

l The Crime and Disorder Act 1998, for the first time, made it clear thatthe principal aim of the youth justice system was to prevent offending

by young people: created YOTs (with a focus on reducing risk),

parenting orders and CDRPs


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Action Plan on Social Exclusion

l It was stated in the 1997 White Paper that the Prime Minister

would take the lead in tackling social exclusion.

l In 2006-07, I had meetings with Prime Minister Tony Blair andwith other ministers at Chequers and at 10 Downing Street and

I had meetings with the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit.

l The Action Plan proposed risk-focussed prevention,

emphasising evidence-based programmes.

l The Prime Minister acknowledged my influence and publishedmy paper on Childhood risk factors and risk-focussed

prevention in 2006 on his website.

l My seminar in the Cabinet Office on Crime Prevention and

Early Intervention was placed on the Cabinet Office website.


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Action Plan for Social Exclusion

l Focus on early intervention with children at risk and on

evidence-based programmes

l Home visiting programmes targeting at-risk children from birthto age 2

l Parent training and the National Academy for Parenting

Practitioners

l Tackling teenage pregnancy with relationship education and

better access to contraceptivesl Family-based approaches including treatment foster care and

multi-systemic therapy

l Interventions for adults with mental health problems and chaotic

lives


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What Changed?

l In the last 25 years, UK policy makers and practitioners have become

increasingly interested in preventing crime by identifying key risk

factors and implementing evidence-based programmes to reduce

them.

l My work (and other research) has had an influence on this.

l There is increasing evidence about effective programmes.

l The main problem has been the short time horizons of politicians and

their perception that desirable results may take years to achieve, long

after they have left office.

l Cost-benefit analyses have helped to overcome this problem (Perry,

WSIPP: evidence-based programmes, reduce prison, reduce crime).

l After 9 years in office, Prime Minister Tony Blair could make long term

plans in his Action Plan on Social Exclusion.and the future??

Documents

Farrington Slides