Swapping Carrots and Sticks for Treasure: Enhancing the Reform of Military Offenders in the British Army
In a 1910 speech on prison reform, Winston Churchill famously stated,
“There is treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man” and “the mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilisation of any country.”
As the Army implements its People Strategy and seeks to deliver a workforce where “people are developed, their talent is nurtured, and they are given the opportunity to achieve great things,” it appears set on expanding the ways to uncover such treasure. However, the author of this article believes that the parameters of such search fail to extend to all military offenders in the British Army on two grounds.
Firstly, offender reform in the British Army is limited in reach. Recourse to formal, expert intervention is limited to detention within the Military Corrective Training Centre (MCTC). Secondly, those reform opportunities that do exist at unit level are focussed on punishment and corrective action. There is no formal policy or additional resource given to use transformational methods for this purpose. The author has therefore commenced research to consider if Commanding Officers currently have the right disciplinary toolset to maximise operational effectiveness. This blog outlines the case for the study, which aims to assess the potential of re-balancing the traditional scales of sticks and carrots with tools that enable personnel to unlock their own treasure.
Discipline underpins operational effectiveness. As stated in Army Doctrine Publication: Land Operations, it is an essential component of fighting power. It increases the productivity and obedience of personnel plus their cohesiveness and will to operate to the highest professional standards. Punishment is a central way to enforce this discipline because it ensures the highest of standards and followership necessary for a profession charged with matters of life and death. Commanding Officers are therefore equipped with powers to discipline their own personnel through Summary Hearing punishments to achieve this. As recognised by the purposes of sentencing given in the Manual of Service Law, the reform and rehabilitation of offenders is also necessary to help maximise individual capabilities and reduce future offending. In terms expert, formal intervention, however, reform is limited in reach to personnel sentenced to detention at MCTC.
Extending the Reach of Reform
MCTC deliver tailored reform of military offenders through a combination of corrective training and multi-agency tailored rehabilitative services, delivered by professionally qualified military and contracted personnel. The success of their approach is highlighted by low recidivism rates with statistics from 2020 highlighting that just 6% of Detainees had previously served custodial sentences at MCTC. A Howard League for Penal Reform Report in 2016 commends the centre’s outputs and in particular its “purposeful activity,… educational and vocational training.” This highlights the effectiveness of individualised and well-resourced rehabilitation to generate behavioural changes and prevent further offending.
Unfortunately, accessing this gold standard is limited to the most prolific or serious offenders. The severity of detention, the deprivation of liberty, means a Commanding Officers’ sentencing powers are limited to 28 days, extendable to 90 with Higher Authority. As stated by the 2020 Annual MCTC Inspection Report, which shows a total of 62 sentences being shorter than 30 days, this “limits the opportunity to address both the causes of offending behaviours and the index offence as well as educational or vocational training needs.” As such both the current reach of reform and rehabilitation, plus the timescale to deliver long-term benefits for operational effectiveness, is limited. Clearly, this does not mean that more soldiers should be deprived of their liberty and sentenced to custody purely to enable their reform. However, extending formal reform interventions to a broader category of offenders, below and beyond the threshold of detention, could arguably enhance operational effectiveness.
Extending the Effect of Reform
Such change is argued for on the belief that the current reform opportunities available to units are limited in long-term effect. These include use of minor administrative action and formal warnings, which are similar to civilian employer’s disciplinary practices and are known as AGAI 67 powers, plus Service Supervision and Punishment Orders (SSPO) available as a Summary Hearing sentence. Whilst each of these provides opportunity to change behaviours, they are reliant on correctional, transactional exchanges between the offender and chain of command. As such this arguably limits their utility in generating an internalised motivation within an offender to change their behaviours.
They may include, for example, imposition of extra duties or report back musters, to be conducted to satisfactory standards in exchange for favourable reporting. Such focus on the perceived failures of the offender is more likely to de-motivate than inspire action. This is highlighted by Corporal Campbell’s criticism of minor administrative sanctions in his Wavell Room article. Although AGAI 67 clearly dictates that sanctions must be “appropriate, proportionate and remedial in relation to the failing identified,” he suggests that they are often perceived as excessively punitive examples of power play. Such opinions may combine with an offender’s lack of autonomy regarding the correctional practice and thus lead to their belief that it has no tangible benefit to them. This risks de-motivating and disempowering them to the detriment of effective reform. As summarised by Bass and Riggio in their book Transformational Leadership;
“if you limit leadership of a follower to rewards with carrots for compliance or punishment with a stick for failure to comply…., the follower will continue to feel like a jackass.”
Negative to Positive Approaches
Not only does excessive focus on sticks limit the intended effect of disciplinary reform, it also increasingly at odds with how the British Army now instils self-discipline. James Burns’ 1978 theory of Transformational Leadership Theory is well established in the Army Leadership Code, which advocates practices like coaching and goal setting. It continues at pace through the development of a new Army mentoring capability and emphasis on empowering and maximising the talents of service personnel. Summarised by the Chartered Institute for Professional Development as an approach focussed “on changing the goals of individuals or groups” in contrast with “transactional leadership (that is) based around formal exchanges,” it generates an intrinsic desire to perform which instils self-discipline. This is essential because the modern Army increasingly requires soldiers that are agile and adaptable, as well as capable of performing independently from command, due to the complex, uncertain and unstable future context, detailed in the Defence publication Global Strategic Trends.
Such transformational approaches align with use of strengths-based offender reform within Civilian Justice Systems. Ward’s Good Lives Model, is an example, “premised on the idea that we need to build capabilities and strengths in people, in order to reduce their risk of reoffending.” It advocates empowering offenders to devise goals and uses an integrated, multi-agency approach to address any individual barriers to realising these. The Scottish Government’s 2015 report What Works to Reduce Reoffending suggests that such interventions are highly effective for young offenders stating that “interpersonal skills training and individual structured counselling and behavioural programmes” help to reduce re-offending by about 40%. As statistics show that 58% of detainees admitted to MCTC in 2020 were under the age of 25, this demonstrates the applicability of such programmes to the younger demographic of military offenders. Therefore, to help such personnel back onto the right path, it is perhaps time to improve the practice of reform at unit level, to realise both earlier and more effective interventions.
It could, of course, be argued that such civilian approaches are not transferable to the military where most offences are for non-criminal conduct. APSG statistics from calendar year 2019, for example, show that the percentage of Summary Hearing convictions based on criminal conduct amounted to only 4.5%. However, it offers a framework, not a fixed programme. As an underlying philosophy, it provides a way to promote well-being, by addressing underlying causes of deviance, whilst improving an offender’s behaviours, skills, and knowledge. Therefore, it provides opportunity to extend outcomes beyond merely re-instating acceptable conduct to one which maximises individual potential.
Spending Treasure to Find Treasure.
Improving reform opportunities at unit level will have an associated manpower and time bill for Commanding Officers, made more expensive if supported by specialist agencies. It may also be perceived to advantage offenders over more disciplined members of the unit. Therefore, research is essential to assess the costs and benefits of such venture. To initiate this, a survey of both Commanding Officers and military offenders is underway to analyse perceptions regarding the effects of punishment and reform on operational effectiveness. With a focus on generational data, findings will be assessed in relation to the future force. The impact of tipping the Army’s disciplinary scales away from sticks in pursuit of treasure remains to be seen. However, if reform is a mark of civilisation, as Churchill suggests, then it is surely beholden upon the British Army to at least consider such quest.
Statistics provided by Army Personnel Services Group (APSG) and Military Corrective Training Centre (MCTC) and reproduced with permission.
About the author: Lt Col Rachel Brunt is a Royal Military Police officer with 16 years’ experience of the service justice system who is currently a student on the Advanced Command and Staff Course.
This BLOG is an academic study conducted as part of the KCL Master by Research programme on the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. The views expressed are those of the author; they do not constitute the opinion of, or a representation by the British Army or the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.
