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Using the theory of Planned Behaviour as the basis, the study investigates the impact of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control on rehiring intention. The predictors of attitude (i.e. organisational culture, risk and government incentives) and perceived behavioural control (i.e. skills and supporting documents) were examined by expanding the TPB model.

A self-administered survey was used to gather data from Malaysian firms hiring ex-offenders. Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to verify the study's proposed research model's hypothesis.

The SEM analysis showed attitude and subjective norm as solid predictors of rehiring intention. For attitude, organisational culture and government incentives were proven to have an impact. Besides perceived behavioural control, the skill set was a significant predictor.

This study suggests that active involvement of the government to engage employers with ex-offenders through incentives (tax deductions and wage and training subsidies) and prison job fairs can increase their employment opportunities. There is also a need for formal guidelines and practices on hiring ex-offenders in organisations to promote a positive hiring culture. Establishing an employment-based re-entry unit that provides ex-offenders with various transition skill programs, such as technical skills, job search skills and life skills, is crucial for their employment prospects.

This study is among the pioneers in investigating ex-offenders’ rehiring agenda, specifically examining factors that influence employers' decision making. The results are relevant to managers, regulators, institutions and NGOs to structure the right interventions to ensure ex-offenders are successfully hired. It is found that Interventions aiming to increase job opportunities for ex-offenders require activities that expand community and ex-offender engagement since it reduces the social stigma and promotes more ex-offenders accepting behaviour.

The Offender Engagement Programme (OEP) within National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has been built on our collaborative approach with probation trusts to develop approaches which can support more effective offender engagement. Drawing areas of potential practice development from our early fieldwork and literature review, events for trusts and reference groups with practitioners and middle managers, we identified where more focussed work with trusts would develop learning and evidence which could be shared. In response to an invitation to express an interest, 22 trusts committed themselves to taking forward an OEP pilot, starting between March and May 2011. External evaluation is planned for nine trusts in total and is being undertaken by our research partners: a team from the Institute of Criminal Policy Research (ICPR) Birkbeck College London and Leicester University, and a team based at Sheffield University which includes Fergus McNeill from Glasgow University.

This chapter looks at how we implemented pilot work on approaches to involving offenders in Sentence Planning; Developing Effective Engagement Skills through training and continuous professional development; and a model for Reflective Supervision by senior and middle managers to support effective engagement. It also examines how the methodology for the external and internal evaluation was developed, and what we are hoping to get out of the evaluation. In short, the purpose of this work is to investigate and test the core proposition that the relationship between the offender and the practitioner can be a powerful means of changing behaviour.

This chapter looks at the role qualitative evaluation can play in the external review of the Probation Service, the development of an evaluation framework for ongoing assessment and how it can be used to develop new elements of the service. How is this different from the use of existing data by the service?

This takes us to the kind of information that is used by the probation service, to make judgements about the effectiveness of its programmes and the impact on offenders. The main contention is that this is in the main quantitative data, and reports on levels of re-offending. The data is standardised so that it can be used to make comparisons between different types of sentence and criminal justice intervention.

Our contention is that this information is limited in what it says for two main reasons. Firstly, quantitative data tends to report on impact, that is whether an offender has committed another crime after engagement with the probation service, or whether there are patterns of behaviour between offences, individual circumstances and the likelihood or re-offending. In short, the data is a snapshot of whether an offender has changed his or her behaviour or not. However, this chapter will illustrate how quantitative data misses an understanding of how behaviour changes and why behaviour does not change. As a result, this leaves the service with a limited understanding of how it is working.

Secondly, the chapter will argue that the existing probation framework itself creates quite specific definitions of which data is relevant and which data is not relevant. We will give examples of narratives that offenders offer in group sessions that provide rich material about their lives, pressures and offence. But evidence suggests that this information is not used to inform programmes, re-assess and review an offender's own progression towards re-offending or a life without crime.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the views and opinions of offender supervisors and offender managers regarding the sequencing of interventions for prisoners in England. More specifically, the research aims to gain an understanding of any barriers to implementing desired practice.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants located across four HM prisons in the West Midlands. Questions were designed to gather information and views regarding: current practice in the area of sequencing of interventions; opinions on the potential importance of coherent sequencing of interventions; views on how interventions should be sequenced; and what, if any, issues impacted upon coherent sequencing. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and report themes within the interviews.

Participants discussed current practice regarding the sequencing of interventions and made suggestions regarding tailoring the sequence of interventions to the individual offender. The issue of readiness to change was emphasised (i.e. engagement with interventions will increase where offenders are able to participate in an intervention when they feel ready to do so). In addition, participants commented that they felt there to be insufficient resources at their disposal which led to barriers to the coherent sequencing of interventions (e.g. waiting lists for treatment programmes).

Suggestions were made by participants regarding the coherent sequencing of interventions; for example, providing prisoners with experience of a generic group intervention prior to an offence-specific intervention, prioritising motivation to change and being responsive to the needs of individual offenders.

The study provides insight regarding the sequencing of interventions from the perspective of offender supervisors and offender managers who are involved in the planning of treatment programmes across the course of an offender’s sentence.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that affect how managers assess the importance of criminal history for job seekers with criminal records in Ban the Box states.

This study uses a phenomenological investigative approach to examine narrative interview data obtained from 18 human resource (HR) professionals in organizations in five Ban the Box states.

Contrary to previous research, the findings presented in this paper show that managers are inclined to hire applicants with a criminal history. However, study findings indicate that those hiring decisions are positively influenced by: perceived value of criminal history; concerns about safety and cost; characteristics of the offense; motivation to hire; and evidence of applicant growth. Furthermore, a lack of systematic evaluation processes among hiring managers may present a barrier to employment.

This paper explores a poorly understood area of the HR management and employment inclusion literatures – the identification of factors that influence evaluations of applicants with a criminal history.

The current management literature suggests that when employees engage in wrongdoing, managers typically respond with punishment. The emerging moral repair literature suggests an alternative to punishment: a reparative response that focuses on repairing harm and restoring damaged relationships. However, little is currently known about restorative managerial responses, including why managers respond to employee wrongdoing in a reparative versus punitive manner. The purpose of this paper is to examine a variety of cognitive and emotional influences on this managerial decision.

This study used a scenario-based survey methodology. The authors gathered data from 894 managers in sales and financial services contexts to test a set of hypotheses regarding individual-level influences on managers’ punitive versus restorative responses.

This study found that managers’ restorative justice orientation, retributive justice orientation, social considerations (e.g. when employees are relatively interdependent versus independent), instrumental considerations (e.g. when the offender is highly valuable to the organization) and feelings of anger influenced their reparative versus punitive responses.

Data are cross-sectional, so causality inferences should be approached with caution. Another potential limitation is common method bias due to single-source and single-wave data.

The findings of this study show that managers often opt for a restorative response to workplace transgressions, and this study surfaces a variety of reasons why managers choose a restorative response instead of a punitive response.

This study focuses on social order and expectations within the workplace. This is important to victims, offenders, observers, managers and other stakeholders. This study seeks to emphasize the importance of social factors, a shared social identity, social bonds and other relationships within this manuscript. This is an important component of organizational-focused restorative justice research.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to explicitly test individual-level influences on managers’ reparative versus punitive responses to employee wrongdoing.

This article seeks to explore the historical context of government policy in relation to mentally disordered offenders. The article will relate this context to the work of the Probation Service, in particular the development of the Offender Management System (OASys), risk assessment and the implications and challenges that face the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). The key question to be assessed is whether NOMS and OASys can lead to a better service for those with mental disorder, and therefore reduce their risk.

The emergence of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) represents a major restructuring of the criminal justice sector which, in time, is likely to have a significant impact on the community safety field. New approaches to commissioning services, the management of offenders and the potential for a service more strongly focused on community interventions all present challenges and potential opportunities for community safety partnerships and partners.

Community safety partnerships have a new statutory duty to reduce reoffending. A key stage in developing a strategy to do this is to understand the problem. The development of offender problem profiles will be an important part of the process. This article, drawing on experience from local partnerships, discusses how partnerships might go about developing offender problem profiles.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of a highly structured, formulation focused consultation process on knowledge and attitudes towards personality disorder and on perceived practice with personality disordered offenders. Consultation was delivered by the Yorkshire/Humber regional Pathway Development Service (PDS). This pilot study sought to inform the development of this service and the support offered to probation Trusts across Yorkshire/Humber to implement the national Personality Disorder Offender Pathway.

Consultation was offered to a number of offender managers working in the Yorkshire/Humber region. The impact of the consultation on their knowledge and understanding of personality disorder in general was examined as was their attitudes to working with this population and their perceived confidence and competence in delivering supervision to each individual.

The findings from this small pilot study would suggest that the structured format used by the Yorkshire PDS was helpful in enhancing the probation officers’ knowledge and understanding of personality disorder as well as their perceived confidence in and attitudes towards working with individuals with a personality disorder.

The study indicates that the structured format used by the PDS is of value and may be applied to the support offered to probation Trusts across Yorkshire/Humber as they implement the community specification of the national Personality Disorder Offender Pathway.