Trialling letters to offenders to influence criminal behaviour

Transcription

1 Trialling letters to offenders to influence criminal behaviour Bringing the message home to offenders Contents 1. Purpose of this guide 2 2. The Spreadsheet 5 3. The Letters 7 4. Post-Letter Sending Activity 9 5. What happens after the data is collected? The Nudge Process Chart Your Nudge Checklist 13

2 1. Purpose of this Guide The Nudge trial which your borough is taking part in has been designed to test whether letters to offenders have an impact upon crime, and to explore the most impactful style of letter. There are four different letter conditions that will be tested; No letter sent at all. Three different letter conditions. Each variation will build upon the previous, becoming more personalised. The letter sending phase of this trial will run for approximately 6 months subject to review. Your main tasks will be distributing letters, along with updating a spreadsheet and taking support calls from participating nominals. Image: Google, commons.wikimedia.org Contact us: Analysts in Corporate Development, Evidence & Performance will be monitoring the nominals at 3, 6, and 12 month intervals to see if there are any changes in arrest, charge and reconviction rates. We will keep your borough updated on our progress. Dan Shalom: dan.shalom@met.police.uk Tel: Sophie Geoghegan: sophie.geoghegan@met.police.uk We thank you in advance for your help. Te: This type of test on gang members and Integrated Offender Management (IOM) nominals has not been done before and we need your help to make it work... If you need any information or advice please call or . 2

3 1.1 Your key role Your key role in Nudge will be the essential day to day running of the process. This will involve: 1) Recording nominal details on a spreadsheet 2) Sending the Nudge letters 3) Taking phone calls from nominals who respond to the support number This guide will help you ensure that: - The Nudge trial spreadsheet is accurate and up to date. - Correct letters are sent to nominals involved in the Nudge trial. - Phone calls received from the support number are dealt with and updated on the spreadsheet. See Page 12 for a Nudge chart to illustrate the trial process.. Please turn over for a case study on the Cabinet Office Nudge Behavioural Insight Team, and understand how they have been using research to identify what works. 3

4 CASE STUDY: Nudge Behavioural Insights Team For more information visit The Nudge Behavioural Insights Team Nudge, applies insights from academic research in behavioural economics and psychology to public policy and services. Its objective is to transform how the government thinks about behavioural aspects of public policy, making it easier for citizens to make better choices for themselves. behavioural-insights-team/ What do they do? Below are 2 examples of their recent projects, showing how evidence can be used to find effective solutions to a variety of problems EXAMPLE 1) Testing whether or not sending text messages to people who had failed to pay their court fines would encourage them to pay prior to a bailiff being sent to their homes. With 5 groups, some were sent no text messages, while others were sent either a standard reminder text or a more personalised message. The trial showed that text message prompts can be highly effective. The Courts Service estimates that sending personalised text reminders could reduce the need for up to 150,000 bailiff interventions annually, whilst being cost effective. Could a more personalised approach with victims, offenders, and the wider community help foster support and yield better results? 23% 25% 33% 5% No Standard Text Text Text + Amount Text + Name % Response rate from text messages 20.5% 19.5% 29% Text + Name + Amount EXAMPLE 2) GreeNudge s latest study on food waste conducted randomised controlled trials in hotel restaurants with food buffets. They found that reducing plate size and communicating that it s ok to come back for another serving resulted in a decrease in food waste whilst hotel guest satisfaction remained the same. Reducing the plate size reduced food waste by 19.5%. Introducing a sign pointing out that guests can help themselves more than once reduced food waste by 20.5%. How could this be applied to policing? Why does it matter? The nudge concept is important to consider as it can help us to be more effective in our work. Contact ebp@met.police.uk to learn how the MPS is using scientific methods to understand what works. 4

5 2. The Spreadsheet Two Spreadsheets You will have received an Excel file named GANGS AND IOM NUDGE SPREADSHEET containing two worksheet tabs entitled GANGS and IOM. The only difference between the two worksheets is the addition of a gang name column. We will need you to record the nominal details, when you sent the letter and any contact made by the nominal after the letter was sent. When you fill in the surname of a nominal a letter condition will automatically appear in the Letter Condition Description column (column J in the GANGS worksheet/ column I in the IOM worksheet). Spreadsheet fields Enter surname and first name. Date of Birth - enter in DD/MM/YYYY format. PNC No. - enter in format 13/123456B. Gang Name - please enter the gang name if known. Date letter Sent - the date the letter was placed in external mail to be despatched. Date became new Gang /IOM nominal - date decision was made. The post-letter sending data columns will be explained in section 4. Random allocation The letter received is generated at random. This can sometimes result in the same letter being generated several times in a row, which is nothing to worry about. 5

6 2.1 Quality assurance When you have saved your spreadsheet, please give us access so we can see how Nudge is going and help if required. 2.2 How do I give read-only access? Right click on your spreadsheet s Excel icon When the options pane pops up, select Properties Select the Security tab Under Groups or User names click Add Type in the surname of the person you want to add in the Enter object names to select box Select the staff account result you want from the results list. Tick Full Control under the Permissions for heading. Please add Dan Shalom and Sophie Geoghegan from Corporate Development to your access permissions. 6

7 3. The Letters The letters are the focal point of this trial. The questions we want to answer are do they reduce offending behaviour and if so, which kind work best? Our letters have been quality assessed by the Cabinet Office and will test themes of enforcement, personalisation, and offers of support. Nominals will be randomly allocated to a receive a letter. The letter sending phase will run for approximately 6 months. The Letter Conditions 1. No Letter Sent - this group will be used as a baseline to measure the other letters against. 2. Local borough resident letter - a generic warning against criminal behaviour. The nominal is not referred to by name. 3. Personalised letter - a warning with the nominal addressed by name and as you. 4. Personalised letter with a support number - the carrot and stick, personalised with the warning but with the addition of a support number offering help to leave their criminal lifestyle. You will have received one set of letter templates for gang members and another for IOM nominals. 7

8 3. The Letters - continued... Check you have adjusted the letter template where necessary: date, address and name of the nominal. Ensure your Borough Commander s signature is on the letter 8

9 4. Post-Letter Sending Activity 4.1 Answering the Nudge support telephone number Ideally, if you are responsible for answering the support phone-line calls you should also be administering the Nudge spreadsheet and sending the Nudge letters. You should be well acquainted with the issues faced by potential callers who are involved in gangs/prolific offending lifestyles. You will need to have contact details of support the callers may want, such as local authority and third party support contacts. How you deal with each caller will be based on your own judgment and the needs of the caller. Practical Support Empathy Specialist Knowledge Understanding 9

10 4.2 Updating the spreadsheet after a phone call Details of support calls received need to be recorded for assessing the impact of Nudge.. There are five fields to complete in the Postletting sending data entry section of the spreadsheet. Date of contact from nominal. A drop-down list of themes including help with housing, addiction or parenting. Free-text for you to describe support given, such as advice, enquiries on their behalf, any planned follow-up contact. A drop-down list of methods in case they contact you in some other way. A drop-down list of Yes, No or Unknown. Please only use the Other dropdown list options as a last resort 10

11 5. What happens when all the data is collected? After the letter sending phase your nominals will be combined with those from other boroughs to form a sample large enough for us to assess the impact of the trial. We will compare condition groups to see if sending a letter has had an impact, and if there are differences in behaviour influenced by the type of letter received. This will include monitoring over a period at 3, 6, and 12 months. Our measures will be arrest rates, severity and frequency of offending. We will also monitor the number of calls made to your support number, to see if the letters prompt nominals to try to exit a criminal lifestyle. 11

12 6. The Nudge Process Chart Pre- rollout preparation Nudge started on agreed date New nominal comes in and is assigned a condition by the randomiser (see page 5) Condition 2, 3 or 4 assigned by randomiser (see page 7) Condition 1 - No letter (see page 7) Spreadsheet Administration (see page 5) Letter Sending - Conditions 2, 3, 4 prepared and sent (see page 8) Post- letter sending & taking support calls (see page 9) Corporate Development quality check administration and data recording (see page 6) Learning & improvement loop Corporate Development collects viable volume for analysis of Nudge and Borough SPOCS receive notification to cease letter sending 12

13 Your Nudge Checklist Before commencing the rollout of Nudge 1 I have white envelopes (110mm x 220mm preferred - that s the size you get when you fold an A4 sheet of paper into thirds). 2 I have enough first class stamps. 3 I have the spreadsheet saved and have given read-only access to my contacts in Corporate Development. 4 I have an electronic copy of the letter condition templates - they have my Borough Commander s scanned signature and correct details on them. 5 The phone for the support number is staffed, and appropriate cover is arranged to account for annual leave, sick days and other abstractions from duty. When administering a new nominal 6 Only send one letter per nominal, even if they come off and are re-entered onto the matrix. It is the impact of the first letter we are measuring. 7 Enter the nominal s details on the spreadsheet as per section 2 in the Nudge Administration Guide, making sure the correct worksheet is used - (Gangs or IOM). 8 After the randomizer has selected a condition open a copy of the corresponding letter template. Fill in the correct date, nominal name, and address in the appropriate sections. 9 Print out a colour copy of the letter and put it in the stamped envelope, hand writing the address on it. 10 On the spreadsheet fill in the date letter sent field. 13