Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency.

Namwinga, Nasalifya

Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency.

dc.contributor.advisor	Tamatea, Armon J.
dc.contributor.advisor	Robertson, Neville
dc.contributor.author	Namwinga, Nasalifya
dc.date.accessioned	2016-08-16T22:26:36Z
dc.date.available	2016-08-16T22:26:36Z
dc.date.issued	2016
dc.date.updated	2016-08-03T02:47:09Z
dc.description.abstract	Community Work is one of the most utilised community based sentences in New Zealand. It is a low cost and low intensity sentence that is extensively used to punish low level offences. Although Community Work is not an explicitly rehabilitative sentence, it does possess some implicitly rehabilitative traits. In her Ireland based study, McGagh (2007) argued that rehabilitative practices enhance Community Work and lead to better outcomes for offenders. The most recent New Zealand based study on the sentence was conducted over 2 decades ago by Asher and O'Neill (1990). This is the research gap this study sought to fill by exploring rehabilitative practices within a faith-based Community Work agency. The study was an ethnographic case study of a faith-based agency within which offenders on Community Work sentences completed sentenced hours. A number of qualitative data collection methods including observations, interviews, a focus group and analysis of testimonial data were used to triangulate findings. The researcher gathered data from three participant groups at the agency. These groups were; individuals currently or previously on community work sentences at the agency, agency staff and agency volunteers. When offenders on community work sentences arrive at this agency their status as offenders is kept private. They are consequently introduced as volunteers and have access to all the same benefits of volunteers. The ability to keep their offender status private and be regarded as any other volunteer was a central theme present in the data. This helped those sentenced to community work to develop a non-offender identity. The invisibility of offender status helped offenders distance themselves from the offender identity, while being offered the visible prosocial ‘volunteer’ identity helped them shift their self-narrative from that of an offender to a nonoffender. Desistance research suggests that subjective changes in an offender’s self-narrative can be indicative of the offender engaging in the desistance process (Farrall & Maruna, 2004; Healy, 2010; Serin & Lloyd, 2009). This study found that anonymising the offender status of individuals in community work sentences at this agency may have initiated a shift in self-narratives as individuals shifted their identity from offenders to volunteers. This narrative shift potentially helped trigger and maintain offender desistance. The principle of treating offenders as desisters rather than persisters displays a confidence in the offenders’ ability to change. This faith in an individual’s ability to change has been found to be desistance supportive (Raynor & Robinson, 2005). Anonymising offender status as a rehabilitative practice can lead to the onset or maintenance of desistance. It is a potentially effective intervention that could be broadly integrated into the community work sentence.
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.identifier.citation	Namwinga, N. (2016). Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency. (Thesis, Master of Applied Psychology (MAppPsy)). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/10598	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10289/10598
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	University of Waikato
dc.rights	All items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
dc.subject	Rehabilitation
dc.subject	Offender
dc.title	Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency.
dc.type	Thesis
pubs.place-of-publication	Hamilton, New Zealand
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Waikato
thesis.degree.level	Masters
thesis.degree.name	Master of Applied Psychology (MAppPsy)