Enabling desistance is a process that starts while offenders are in prisons and correctional officers are key in facilitating the start of that change journey. While rehabilitation and operations are often viewed as distinct concepts, this presentation challenges that notion by proposing that common operational touchpoints can be leveraged for brief, purposeful conversations. If every officer has a 3-minute conversation with one offender over the course of his shift, the potential for prosocial, purposeful, and goal-directed conversations is amplified in kickstarting offenders’ desistance journeys.
This presentation would share more about Singapore Prison Service’s multi-site pilot titled, “3-Minute GREAT Conversations”, which utilises behavioural science principles to encourage officers to have short and purposeful conversations with offenders. Design thinking was utilised to identify and streamline core inmate engagement skills into five personas (Genuine George, Reframing Ravin, Enabling Ella, Affirming Aishah and Tactful Taufik) which embodied two to three steps on how the skills could be applied during fast-paced operations. Instead of a traditional classroom training, microlearning methods helped officers understand and remember the skillsets while behavioural insight techniques nudged the application of skills during their common touchpoints with offenders.
The evaluation results from one of the three pilot sites revealed that officers had more frequent, deeper conversations with inmates, which moved beyond rehabilitation to contribute towards better inmate management. The 3-min GREAT Conversations initiative enabled officers to recognise the importance of having purposeful conversations with inmates, shaped a rehabilitative culture, and paved the first steps in enabling offenders on their desistance journeys.
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Sarah Joseph
Senior Psychologist/ Assistant Director, Singapore Prison Service
Sarah Lavinia Joseph is an Assistant Director of the Programme Design and Evaluation Branch in the Psychological and Correctional Rehabilitation Division. Her team oversees the design, implementation and evaluation of psychology-based correctional programmes and prison regime-related initiatives. In both her current and previous positions, Sarah has extensive experience working with correctional officers to improve rehabilitative operations. She is also a trainer with SPS and trains correctional officers to run a group-based motivation programme for offenders. She deeply enjoys working with correctional officers and strives to improve her designed initiatives and training methods to best suit their needs.
By training, Sarah is a Senior Psychologist and obtained her MSc in Forensic Clinical Psychology from King’s College London. She undertakes forensic risk assessments and interventions with offenders with violent offences. She is also interested in working with substance abusers and is currently working on a longitudinal research on youths who abuse substances.
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Theepan Ravintheran
Officer-in-Charge, Singapore Prison Service
Theepan Prakash Ravintheran is currently the Officer-in-Charge of B2 (Remand Prison) Medical Centre. He leads a team of officers in working with the appointed medical service provider to oversees the operations of the B2 Medical Centre and manage the inmates undergoing medical and / or psychiatric treatment at the facility. During his 15 years of service with the Singapore Prison Service (SPS), Theepan has worked with and engaged various categories of inmates to achieve operational outcomes and facilitate their rehabilitation. Theepan is also a Principal Trainer with SPS. He has trained correctional officers in the fields of corrections and leadership and coached fellow trainers to enhance their training competencies. By training, he had obtained a Master of Arts in Professional Education (Training & Development) from the National Institute of Education in Singapore.
