Skills for Justice worked with partners at RAND Europe and Get the Data to conduct a study of how police in England and Wales use Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs) to support adults with health-related vulnerabilities, such as challenges with their mental health, substance misuse, or neurodiversity.
The goals of the study were to:
- Give a better understanding of the current scale and use of OOCDs with relevant conditions for adults with mental health and other health vulnerabilities.
- Identify relevant intervention services currently used by police forces as OOCD conditions for adults with health vulnerabilities.
- Identify gaps in local intervention services.
- Enable evidence-informed decision-making by sharing findings on approaches to identify health vulnerabilities and deploy health-related OOCD conditions.
- Provide guidance for police forces on effective practice for accessing existing services.
- Enable police to improve data capture for this group of offenders, including on specific conditions attached to OOCDs.
The research team then worked with seven police forces to develop a basis for practice change and to improve the data collection methods used to monitor the use of OOCDs and enable future research on their effectiveness.