Choose Change is a support project delivered by Greater Manchester Probation Trust to short-term prisoners in HMP Manchester with the intention of reducing rates of recidivism amongst prisoners who do not qualify for statutory probation support.

What is the need?

In June 2011 the final report of an evaluation of Choose Change undertaken by MMU was delivered to the Greater Manchester Probation Trust. Following this report, the project has been re-launched and Greater Manchester Probation Trust has requested another evaluation of the project.

What are we doing?

What is proposed is a more qualitative approach with a view to understanding from a prisoner perspective the risks and benefits of the Choose Change project. The evidence gathered for this evaluation could help identify the factors associated with the high rates of attrition and ‘proven reoffending’ found in the original evaluation.

The evaluation takes a mixed methods approach with offender interviews both pre and post release, interviews with staff and a case study analysis using OASYs data.

What will be the outcomes?

The intention is to use in-depth interviews to explore the process and delivery of the project from both the practitioner and offender perspective. The case study approach, incorporating data on life history factors associated with the onset, prevalence and maintenance of offending behaviour could prove valuable as an assessment of the appropriateness of Choose Change for the target group.

What are the timescales?

Interviews are already underway and the final report is due to be delivered by the end of August 2013

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