The Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) at Manchester Metropolitan University is working in partnership with Interserve Justice to provide a range of research and evaluation services around offender rehabilitation.

What is the need?

Since 2015 the Interserve-led partnership, Purple Futures has been responsible for managing probation and rehabilitation services in five Community Rehabilitation Companies including Cheshire and Greater Manchester. Purple Futures is one of the leading providers of probation services in England and Wales and is responsible for managing 35,000 offenders a year. Interserve is committed to developing innovative approaches to offender rehabilitation that are underpinned by robust research evidence and PERU is supporting it to do so.

What are we doing?

PERU will work with Interserve to:

• Evaluate a range of its offender rehabilitation interventions;
• Review existing research evidence from the UK and around the world to identify promising new approaches;
• Support the development of innovative approaches to offender rehabilitation by helping Interserve to translate research and theory into practice; and
• Work with staff across Interserve Justice to ensure that evidence is translated into practice.

What will be the outcomes?

We will be producing regular reports and briefings. We will also produce academic publications. Interserve is committed to putting its research and evaluation findings in the public domain wherever possible.

What are the timescales?

This programme started in December 2015 and is due to run, in the first instance, for three years.

Project links

• For more information on Purple Futures click here https://purplefutures.sites.interserve.com
• For more information on Interserve Justice click here https://www.interserve.com/who-we-help/justice