In article <6mks36$ou...@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz>
           math...@math.canterbury.ac.nz "Bill Taylor" writes:

OK..  substantiate this. Explain how and why what I  have  posted
here  deserves  to  be treated in such terms.  Or  is  abuse  and
rhetoric all you have to contribute here.

I  have provided references to support what I have  written,  and
the main work I refer to was developed over 10 years of practcial
research and development.

Have you actually read anything I have referenced?

Disclaimer:

    The  views expressed in these volumes are those  of  the
    author  and  may not represent the views of  the  Prison
    Service.  Any  corrections,  comments  or  requests  for
    further copies should be sent to the author.

    'When  taught arithmetic in junior school we all  learnt
    to  add and to multiply two numbers. We were not  merely
    taught  that any two numbers have a sum and a product  -
    we  were  given methods or rules for  finding  sums  and
    products.   Such  methods  or  rules  are  examples   of
    algorithms or effective procedures. Their implementation
    requires  no ingenuity or even intelligence beyond  that
    needed to obey the teacher's instructions.

    More generally, an algorithm or effective procedure is a
    mechanical  rule, or automatic method, or programme  for
    performing some mathematical operation.'

    N.J. Cutland (1980)
    Computability:  An  Introduction to  recursive  function
    theory
    Ch 1:Algorithms or effective procedures

Title: PROBE System Specification                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Overviews and Introduction

Origin: D Longley, Principal Psychologist, Activity Services

Date: September 1994

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 to 3.

Reviewer 1

September 1994

The  first three volumes of this work are  daunting,  challenging
and  clearly  represent  a  great  deal  of  thought,  study  and
consideration  on the part of the author. It is also rare that  a
prison psychologist faces a document of such weight when asked to
read   a  colleague's  work.   This  is  the  first  thing   that
differentiates  David  Longley's work from that  of  the  average
prison  service  psychologist (should such a person  exist).  The
other  differences become apparent as this work is read, and  the
reader  gains  the  impression  that  he  is  imploring  them  to
reevaluate their role in the organisation. The tasks handed  down
by  our many leaders and managers do not appear in the scheme  of
work as defined in this document, and there is a problem for  the
reader. Does this work fit in to the current ways of working, and
if  not, could it, and should it and how can it be made to ?   By
reading this document one is forced to ask such questions, and as
Longley makes his own position clear, so one is forced to  answer
them.

In  Volume  1.  Longley sets the scene by  raising  issues  which
practising psychologists commonly avoid facing: 'judgment', 'base
rates'  and  'Bayes  Theorem',  'intension  and  extension'.   He
introduces   the  subject  of  logic,  which  few   undergraduate
psychology courses address and this psychologist feels  instantly
anxious.  He then goes on to illustrate just how  important  such
issues  are,  and  then  how difficult they  are  to  deal  with.
Crucially  he uses illustrative examples from  the  psychological
literature  (Wason, Johnson-Laird p.17) and reminds us  of  those
undergraduate  lectures  where we were praying that  the  teacher
would  not ask us what the answer was. Funnily none of mine  ever
did,  but always made some quip about 'I'm sure you all know  the
answer, which is of course....'.

What Longley also does is explain some of the basis for practices
which counter his logical, scientific view; 'socially conditioned
(induced) intensional heuristics'. The power of such conditioning
should   not  be  underestimated.  When  professionally   applied
psychology  does  not  equate with  academic  psychology,  as  is
superbly  illustrated  on page 27. the  applied  psychologist  is
faced  with a dilemma. Answer the question or change the  way  we
work. Longley tells us to change the way we work as otherwise  we
behave  like the subjects in the academics' work. He also  offers
to help us change the way we work and holds up the PROBE  project
as   a  (the)  'relational  system  to  provide   the   requisite
distributional   data  upon  which  to  use  the  technology   of
algorithmic decision making'.

This  introduction  leads in to an introduction of  the  Sentence
Management  project which is carefully explained as the focus  of
behaviour change in the prison system. This is a great relief for
those  of us who wonder about the wisdom of a world  where  group
work  is  seen  as  the  agent  of  behaviour  change  and  other
activities as mere 'work'. It is difficult to imagine how  anyone
could  argue against the proposal that the contingencies  in  the
work place are important in shaping prisoners' behaviour and that
they  should  be  used to have a maximum  effect  on  'offending'
behaviour. Here Longley makes his claim on the focus of work, and
the requirement of continual assessment and evaluation.

Allied  to this is his point about 'inhibition' of  behaviour  as
contrasted with 'learning' (page 36-7). Despite so much evidence,
our society appears to have retained faith in the suppression  of
undesirable  behaviours by the use of punishment or other  means.
By  focusing on new behaviour Longley presents  the  alternative,
the  development of new skills using principles of  reinforcement
and  assessing the effects using distributional data. What  every
psychologist must surely argue for in the criminological  context
(?). He states: 'At present we don't even keep systematic records
of  what  we  do with inmates in activities.  How  can  governors
effectively  manage prisons, .... if nobody systematically  knows
what they are doing with inmates ?'. This argument does not aline
against  the  'what  works' literature,  but  presents  a  simple
argument; that to know what effect the prison system is having on
the  behaviour  of prisoners we must  record  what  environmental
conditions  they  are living and operating in, and how  they  are
responding or behaving. The only way to do this is systematically
and then we can demonstrate 'suppression' as well as 'learning'.

In  the footnote of Volume 1. Longley quotes an  Open  University
source  which  notes  that .... 'human judges did  not  like  the
results'.  This  comment typifies reactions of  professionals  to
arguments  in favour of increased actuarial judgement.  The  fact
that the 'results' are 'not liked' is not a reason for  rejecting
the validity of the work however, and the need for  professionals
to  understand  the  issues debated here  are  likely  to  become
increasingly important as the Prison Service comes under  further
public and political scrutiny through its transition into  agency
status. When asked how decisions are made, an actuarial judgement
may  provide better results (all the evidence suggests  so),  and
may be easier to defend (using an argument of probability  rather
than 'cause' or 'similarity to another case' etc.).

I will not comment on Volume 2. (An empirical illustration) other
than  to  say  that the reports  reproduced  here  provide  large
amounts of information in a format which requires some discipline
to  read. This will count against an argument for such as  system
in  a world of 'executive summaries' and 'sound-bites'.  Managers
and other prison staff will require an amount of guidance to  use
the rich information provided by this system and that task should
belong  to psychologists. Such guidance demands a high degree  of
understanding however, and reminded me of the difference  between
describing your own research to colleagues, where one has had the
opportunity  to  explore  the details of  the  data  beyond  that
presented  in  the final report, and that of  describing  someone
else's research, which usually involves incomplete statements and
unsure assertions when memory flounders.

This  is  a  real issue for a system which  aims  to  provide  as
automated  a process as possible and will demand a great deal  of
disciplined  work  among psychologists to  achieve  the  required
understanding. This is perhaps constrained by the difficulties of
training people to use actuarial methods (e.g., Nisbett and  Ross
quoted in Volume 1.).

Volume  3.  marries  together the  academic  background  and  the
practical illustration in what is probably individually the  most
useful  of  the  three  volumes.  Longley  states  in  the  early
paragraphs:  'no disrespect is intended to any  practising  field
psychologists....' and yet this material challenges virtually all
working practices of psychology in the Prison Service. The reader
is left with the impression of a purely bi-polar argument whereas
others  working  in  this  area have  sought  smaller  shifts  in
practice.  Clearly not all current practice is 'folk  psychology'
although  that  which  corresponds  with  'operational  behaviour
science'  as defined by Longley is largely confined  to  research
work. The fact that psychologists may well feel fairly  defensive
about  their  professional standing (in comparisons  with  'hard'
sciences and medicine for example) does not help Longley's  cause
here.  The value of the PROBE/Sentence Management system is  that
it  provides  a  'value  free'  approach  and  rejects  rhetoric.
Unfortunately   the   conviction   of  this   document   may   be
misinterpreted  as  rhetoric  by  those who  have  not  read  the
literature on actuarial and clinical judgement, the  contribution
of  logic to the development of science and the  debates  between
philosophers of science.

It  is  also doubtful whether many psychologists working  in  the
field  (for  whom  this document largely  appears  to  have  been
written),  will have considered other issues Longley presents  in
Volume  3.  For example, many psychologists will  not  have  been
exposed  to  arguments against confidentiality in  a  counselling
relationship.  The British Psychological Society Code of  Conduct
presents  an  ethical  view which is  difficult  to  equate  with
Longley's. It could be argued that the least use of this document
is  in  stimulating debate among practising  psychologists  about
issues we commonly choose to ignore or take for granted.

A  further issue emerging from Volume 3. is that it is  not  only
professional  psychology  that is caught up in the  operation  of
'folk  psychology'.  Every  professional and  inhabitant  in  the
system is a practising folk psychologist (as those of us who work
in  establishments are only too aware), and 'helpful  extensional
strategies'  (p.26)  will  challenge all.  Operating  within  the
PROBE/Sentence Management system will always require  challenging
the everyday explanations of others in the system, and while such
explanations may well be the legitimate target of academic study,
they  may also be the largest constraint of all. Once again  this
is  not  an  argument  against Longley  but  another  area  where
enthusiasm is likely to be limited.

On  page 31, Longley goes further, and led me to realise  what  a
sobering  thought  is presented by his vision  of  criminological
psychology.  That is, what a scientific approach offers  is  less
than  an  artistic, creative, solipsistic  psychology,  not  more
than.  Just  as 'folk physics' can explain all  of  the  physical
world  without resorting to evidence, and the concept of  'faith'
rests purely on the absence of evidence, so 'folk psychology' can
operate  with enormous potential. All behaviour can be  explained
(albeit  retrospectively)  and all effects on  behaviour  can  be
isolated.  'Theory'  does  not need to go  through  the  tortuous
routes exercised in 'hard' science; it can simply be written down
with  the  aid of a few well drafted diagrams.... The  fact  that
folk   psychology   is  non-science  is  unlikely  to   make   it
unattractive  and the effects of 'social conditioning'  mentioned
earlier  are  unlikely to be positive. One thing  that  actuarial
judgment  gives you is a sense of how wrong you are likely to  be
(probabilities again). Folk psychology can explain away  anything
without presenting a need to recognise errors; in folk psychology
all 'effects' have 'causes'.

Throughout Volume 3. Longley presents critiques of others'  work.
Well informed criticism is likely to be viewed as altercation  in
this  context,  however carefully source material is  quoted  and
evidence  cited.  It might have been beneficial  to  present  the
PROBE project as a positive and integral part of the task  facing
prison  psychologists  rather  than a  'competitor  within'.  For
example the role of a relational database containing  information
on  the  attributes and behaviours of all  prisoners  within  the
Dispersal/Cat B system presents an ideal base for  systematically
evaluating group programme work (such as the sex offender,  anger
management  and  thinking skills programmes). A  research  design
could  simply  be designed around the data, with  control  groups
providing  little  difficulty  as the  database  is  designed  to
contain data on *all* cases, not a sample. The PROBE system could
also  be  argued  to  support  the  'Key  Performance   Indictor'
information used to assess prisons. Governors could use  standard
reports  about the nature of their populations and  changes  over
time  to  point  to  the  performance  indicators   (actuarially)
underlying KPIs. It is probably frustration that prevents  purely
positive  argument,  and  the political will  within  the  prison
service  (as  is  political will anywhere)  is  no  respecter  of
science.

In Volume 3. Longley presents some neat turns of phrase that make
his work appealing... On page 240 he says '... behaviour  science
and  management  is the business of the Prison Service,  just  as
medicine  is the business of the Health Service'. While  this  is
undoubtedly true, it may not be respected by those operating (in)
that service.

After  reading  these three volumes one is left with a  sense  of
hope  for  the PROBE system. It is hard to deny  that  psychology
faces  a  difficult future without a firm  scientific  base,  and
despite  the resistance to 'science' in the field of  psychology,
the need for evidence (such as in efficacy of treatments) and the
need for improvements will demand this work be done. It may  well
transpire  that it will not be psychologists who are asked to  do
the   work,  but  'IT  experts'  who  are  not  trained  in   any
behavioural/psychological  theory. The consequences of such  will
be  major. Psychologists are placed in a privileged  position  in
his  volume. Longley argues that the combination of  training  in
psychological  theory and methods, access to information  systems
and  the support of the Prison Service will lead to an  effective
applied  behaviour science. It is to be hoped that they (we)  are
to be given the chance.

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 to 4.

Reviewer 2.

September 1994
________________________________________________________________

In  my view the Profiling Behaviour (PROBE) system offers  Prison
Service   Managers   a  unique  facility   which,   if   utilised
appropriately  and to its full potential, through the  employment
of  specially  trained  behaviour  scientists,  may  provide  the
Service  with the means of achieving its goals and in  so  doing,
ultimately its Vision:

    "To  provide a Service of which the public can be  proud
    and will be regarded as a standard of excellence  around
    the world".

Goal 1:To Keep Prisoners in Custody

It  is well known that a major problem for the Prison Service  at
this  point in time is how to deal with the failure of  prisoners
to  return to custody following the granting of Home Leave.  This
is equally as acute when we consider the difficulties  associated
with the granting of Temporary Release.

Poor  decision making is extremely costly in such  instances  and
does  little to bring the Service closer to achieving its  Vision
where the Public is concerned.

The  PROBE Home Leave Actuarial Risk Assessment procedure  could,
if  fully developed, provide managers with a model to assist  and
perhaps   even   ultimately  replace,  the  judgements   of   the
individuals that constituent the Home Leave Board.

It is obvious that the convening of Boards is expensive, both  in
terms of time and money. Therefore the development of a  computer
model  which produces results at least as effective  and  perhaps
even more effective than any Board, must be an attractive  option
to any forward thinking manager.    

In  my view therefore, behaviour scientists should be  given  the
time  and  resources  to fully develop such  a  system,  so  that
managers  could  be provided with probability  estimates  of  any
prisoner  belonging to a Home Leave failure group. Such a  system
should  ultimately  be extended to include the development  of  a
model  for  use  with prisoners to be  considered  for  Temporary
Release.  

Obviously,  it is a nonsense for such a system to  be  restricted
only  for the use of those working in Dispersal Prisons.  Indeed,
it  is establishments at the other end of the  security  category
(ie.  C's  and  D's) which are likely to benefit  most  from  the
development and employment of such a system.  

Goal 2:To Maintain Order, Control, Discipline and a Safe Environment

The  maintenance  of  order, control and  discipline  within  our
prisons and the creation of a safe environment for both prisoners
and  staff to live and work in, are fundamental requirements  for
the  success  of the Prison Service of the future.   The  Public,
particularly in recent years, in the aftermath of the Strangeways
and Wymott riots, has been made all too aware of the consequences
of  the  breakdown  of control and discipline and  of  staff  and
prisoners  fearing  for their safety within the  prison  setting.  
Inevitably then, they will look to the Service to devise improved
methods   of  control,  which  will  substantially   reduce   the
likelihood,  or at the very least improve our  preparedness  for,
order breaking down within our prisons.

In my view the PROBE Behaviour Monitoring Control and  Allocation
Profiles  provide  the Prison Service with one such  method.  The
PROBE  system's  capacity  for  generating  individual  behaviour
profiles,   producing  aggregated  population   data,   producing
establishment  profiles  of  adjudications,  analysing  behaviour
checklists  based  on  staff observations and  the  producing  of
thematic  and  spatial  maps, are facilities which  are,  at  the
present  time,  unique  and  which, if  utilised  to  their  full
potential,  offer managers a level of insight into the nature  of
their populations never before available to them.

Whilst  the development of such procedures and routines  has,  to
date,  been  concentrated in the  Dispersal  prisons,  experience
would suggest that lower category prisons and Local prisons would
benefit  equally  from  the installation  of  such  systems.  The
investment  of resources into the full development and  extension
of  such systems would have as its payoff a  valuable  Management
Information System which might serve as a basis for making better
operational decisions relating to the maintenance of control.

Goal  4:To provide Positive Regimes which help prisoners  address
their  Offending Behaviour and allow them a full and  responsible
life as possible

Goal  5:To  help  prisoners  prepare  for  their  return  to  the
Community

If the Prison Service is truly to become a Service "regarded as a
standard  of  excellence around the world", then it  is  critical
that  it develops Regime opportunities for prisoners that  impact
on  their offending behaviour and prepares them for their  return
to  the  community.  Currently  the  Service  has  no  systematic
information  and knowledge concerning the true impact  of  Regime
opportunities on prisoners behaviour.

The  PROBE Behaviour Modification System (Sentence  Management  &
Plans)  in my view seeks to readdress this problem  by  affording
managers  the  opportunity  of monitoring the  impact  of  Regime
Activities on any individual's behaviour on a monthly basis. Such
measures  of behaviour can also be compared  against  Residential
behavioural  measures.  The  system,  by  routinely   identifying
prisoners  who  are  performing  well or  poorly  for  any  given
Activity  and\or  Residential Unit and  placing  these  alongside
individual  control  measurements  (ie.  NIC,  S-Factor),  allows
managers  to make decisions regarding the setting of  appropriate
short  and  long term targets, which seek to impact  directly  on
behaviour  and  against  which the  progress  of  the  individual
prisoner can be measured across time.

The  operation of such a system, if properly resourced, would  in
my  view,  offer  the Service its best  opportunity  to  date  to
monitor its progress in achieving Goals 4 and 5.

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 to 4.

Reviewer 3

September 1994
________________________________________________________________

CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF PROBE SYSTEM SPECIFICATION

The  PROBE  System Specification provides for the  first  time  a
comprehensive  description  of  the ideas  behind  and  practical
implementation   of  PROBE.  It  includes  everything  from   the
'Academic  Context'  of  the work to  detailed  listings  of  the
complex  retrievals  and batch files needed to  make  the  system
function.  It is unfortunate that this high quality document  was
not  available  several years ago. In my  opinion,  the  academic
background  section could have been presented as a short  summary
of  the  concepts  behind PROBE and a  representative  sample  of
references  to work done in this area. I would suggest that  over
intellectualising   has   at  times  detracted   from   a   clear
presentation to psychologists and governors of what, despite  its
complexity, is basically a practical database application.

Volume  2 describes in detail how the Sentence Management  system
can be used and what results can be derived. Some of the  graphs,
particularly  the line graphs are difficult to interpret  due  to
attempting  to represent too many establishment data sets on  one
graph.

In  volume  3, section 1 provides a clear and useful  account  of
some   general  system  issues,  database  structure,   training,
efficiency,  costs  etc. Section 2 describes some  of  the  major
current  applications  of  PROBE. It demonstrates  the  usage  of
across establishment analysis of transfers and adjudications. The
information  on Spatial Mapping should be particularly useful  to
field  developers.  Section  3  covers  the  results  which   are
obtainable from the sentence management system.

Volume  4 is in my opinion the core of the System  Specification.
It  describes with clarity and detail all the inner  workings  of
field and headquarters nodes. While the overall structure of  the
wide  area network is described, it might be easier to  visualise
it, if it were presented in a diagrammatic form.  Similarly,  the
operation   of  the  overnight  routines  may  be  more   quickly
assimilated  by  a  software maintenance engineer  if  they  were
accompanied by some form of system flowchart.

SUMMARY

The  PROBE System Specification provides a comprehensive  account
of the work which has lead to the current state of development of
the  database  and  supporting routines. In itself  it  forms  an
important  part of the PROBE system and will prove invaluable  to
those who will develop and maintain the system in the future.

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 and 2.

Reviewer 4

September 1994
________________________________________________________________

PROFILING BEHAVIOUR (PROBE) SYSTEM SPECIFICATION VOLUMES 1 & 2

This  document describes a framework for facilitating the use  of
systematic information as a basis for making decisions which  are
central  to the operation of any prison establishment. Volumes  1
and 2 will prove challenging and thought-provoking to anyone with
a professional interest in the management of prisons.

The   first  volume  describes  the  academic  context  for   the
development  of  the PROBE relational database.  It  demands  the
reader  to  focus  on fundamental aspects of  the  management  of
prisons and invites a re-appraisal of some of the current systems
of operation. Approaches to the assessment of prisoner behaviour,
the  organisation  of activities for prisoners and  the  role  of
Applied Criminological Psychology in prisons come under scrutiny.
The  complex and lengthy development of arguments in this  volume
can  be  daunting and require focused concentration in  order  to
gain an appreciation and understanding of the content. However if
the  reader  perseveres the guiding principles behind  PROBE  are
made explicit thereby setting the context for subsequent volumes.

Volume 2 provides a clear and accessible account of how the PROBE
system  can  be  applied  in a  prison  situation.  The  detailed
examples successfully illustrate the potential usefulness of  the
database.  There  are convincing demonstrations of  the  way  the
system  has been used at different levels of the  organisation  -
from  the day-to-day population management of individual  prisons
to   the   development   of   a   broader   perspective    across
establishments.  The reader is also prompted to think beyond  the
specific  examples and recognise how use of the system  could  be
extended  to play a key role in a range of central tasks  carried
out  by  establishments.  These may  include  the  evaluation  of
activity programmes and Key Performance Indicator performance.

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 to 3.

Reviewer 5

September 1994
________________________________________________________________
PROBE: THE SYSTEM SPECIFICATION

I  recently  asked a colleague what was  the  difference  between
PROBE  and LIDS, she said 'PROBE is like a history book  that  is
updated every day and LIDS is a daily paper rewritten every  day.  
In  this  simple statement she has captured a lot.   It  is  well
known  that  the  best  indicator of  future  behaviour  is  past
behaviour  and therefore the history book will be of more use  to
us in monitoring and shaping inmate behaviour than the daily.

I was asked to comment on this System Specification for PROBE  as
someone who has worked with PROBE since its arrival in the field,
and  therefore  in a position to judge if it truly  reflects  the
PROBE system.

Reading  this document is hard work, principally I felt  this  is
caused  by  the  frequent use of references  in  the  text.   The
content  itself is both logical and accessible (bearing  in  mind
the  first comment), and the depth of analysis  is  considerable.
It's  not just a description of how a series of PC's  are  linked
together  to collect data.  It is an explanation of both how  the
PROBE system functions and why it functions in that way.

Since joining the Prison Service I am aware that there is a  more
positive/constructive attitude within Prison Psychology.  Much of
this  has  come about with the rejection of the  'nothing  works'
philosophy.   This  has  led to the development  of  regimes  and
behaviour modification programmes, and evaluation of this is made
possible by PROBE.

Why  should  you read this - I would encourage you to  read  this
document  because  it will help you to re-evaluate  your  current
practice. I would particularly recommend volume 1 pages 50-76  on
Clinical vs. Actuarial judgement.  In the days of open  reporting
both  internally  and  for the Courts, it  could  save  you  many
sleepless nights.

Comments on:-

PROBE - The system specification by David Longley, DIP. Volumes 1 and 3.

Reviewer 6

September 1994
________________________________________________________________

The PROBE system has the potential to enhance the management  and
reform  of prisoners and thereby to assist the Prison Service  in
achieving  its aim of helping prisoners 'to live law abiding  and
useful  lives  in custody and after release'. As such,  far  from
being  scaled  down, it should be maintained in  the  prisons  in
which  it  is  already  in place  and,  when  possible,  extended
throughout the system.

As  I understand it, PROBE can help the Service to meet its  aims
through  improving  predictions. The PROBE system is  capable  of
making  predictions  about an individual's future  behaviour  and
about the effect of particular experiences on future behaviour  -
and  to do so more accurately than people. PROBE is thus able  to
enhance  decision  making in relation to prisoners  by  improving
predictions  concerning  the  outcome  of  such  decisions.   The
potential  implications of this in terms of improvements  in  the
management and reform of incarcerated offenders are profound  and
far-reaching.  Armed  with  an enhanced ability  to  predict  the
outcome of home leaves, governors' decision making in relation to
home  leave  applications  would be  improved.  Likewise,  better
predictions about the effects on recidivism of particular  regime
elements would lead to better matching of prisoners to activities
and so, ultimately, to reductions in re-offending.

PROBE makes predictions as follows:

(i)  Data  are  collected and stored in  a  relational  database,
relating prisoners's behaviour at time t with their behaviour and
experiences up to time t.

(ii)  These  data are analysed, using the technique  of  logistic
regression,  to  produce  prediction  equations  in  relation  to
particular behavioural outcomes.

(iii) Data on an inmate about whom a prediction is to be made  is
fed  in  to  the  relevant prediction  equation,  which  is  then
computed,  generating  a  prediction about the  likelihood  of  a
particular outcome occurring.

Humans can not, Longley suggests, make such accurate  predictions
as PROBE. This is because people can not store or process as much
information  as  a  computer  and,  unlike  computers,   peoples'
information  processing  is subject to all manner of  biases  and
inaccuracies.

In  addition  to  describing, and making  the  case  for,  PROBE,
Longley makes a number of other observations.

 x  Information concerning mentalistic states, events and processes
can not be used in making scientifically supportable predictions,
both for empirical and logical reasons. Empirical  considerations
include,  most  obviously,  the fact that prisoners  can  not  be
relied upon to tell us the truth, especially when, as they  often
do,  they  have a vested interest in not telling the  truth.  The
logical problem with mentalistic statements in science can not be
summarised  succinctly,  but is clearly explained  by  Quine  and
others (cf Word and Object, Quine, 1960).

 x  What within the Prison Service lifer management system has been
called  "risk  assessment"  involves human  judgement  which,  as
noted,  it is suggested, is of only limited value.  In  addition,
Longley argues that identifying to prisoners behaviours which are
supposed  to  be  indicative  of  continued  risk  will  lead  to
suppression  of  those  behaviours and thus to  the  illusion  of
change where none has occurred.

 x   In attempting to generate long term change we should,  Longley
argues,  take advantage of all that is available within a  prison
regime, and not just special programmes. This could only be  done
however if backed up by an actuarial decision making tool such as
PROBE to help match experiences to prisoners' needs.

Many  have  said  that they do not agree  with  what  Longley  is
suggesting. It is difficult for those who believe that they  have
special powers of insight to accept his claims. Unfortunately for
them,  Longley provides copious, and I believe  incontrovertible,
evidence  in support of his claims. The implications  for  prison
psychology are clear:

1  PROBE  should  be  maintained  and,  when  possible,  extended
throughout the system;

2  "Risk assessment", and indeed any form of clinical  judgement,
should be abandoned;

3  Whilst special programmes may have their place, the  focus  of
attempts  to  modify prisoners' behaviour should be  extended  to
encompass  the entire prison regime - something that  PROBE  may,
ultimately, allow us to do.

I  have recently been involved in evaluating the  National  Anger
Management   Group,  using  a  conventional   random   allocation
controlled study (Shepherd, 1994). A more appropriate way to have
conducted such research, would have been to use the PROBE system.
Using  PROBE  would  remove the need for  data  to  be  collected
specifically  for the purposes of evaluating the  programme,  and
would allow us to answer many of the questions the current  study
leaves  unanswered,  without  the need  for  elaborate  and  time
consuming  experiments.  It  would even remove  the  need  for  a
control  group, and all the practical and ethical  problems  that
entails.

Behaviour  profiles before and after treatment could be  examined
for  those  attending the programme. If their  profiles  were  to
evidence   a  consistent  discontinuity  between  pre  and   post
treatment,  this could reasonably be attributed to an  effect  of
treatment. The magnitude and longevity of any discontinuity would
provide  a meaningful measure of the magnitude and  longevity  of
any effect.

As  well  as providing profiles of behaviour,  the  PROBE  system
holds  a  variety of other information, (such  as  offence  type,
previous  convictions and previous custodial experience). Once  a
sizeable  number  of  prisoners  had  been  treated,  a  logistic
regression  analysis  could be conducted to  identify  groups  of
prisoners   with   regard  to  whom  the   programme   might   be
differentially  effective, and allow any such differences  to  be
quantified. Identifying which, if any, elements of the  programme
are its "active ingredients", would be less straight-forward, but
could  be ascertained by comparing, with the effects of the  full
version  of  the programme, the impact on behaviour  profiles  of
variants of the programme from which particular elements had been
omitted.

The  PROBE  system could also be used to shed some light  on  the
issue  of   how  any "active ingredients" of  the  programme  might
work. If the programme has an impact on disruptive behaviour  via
improved  anger management, behaviour would also be  expected  to
change in other ways, consistent with reductions in the frequency
and  intensity  of  anger - where such  changes  would,  if  they
occurred,  be reflected in changes in the behaviour  profiles  of
the  prisoners  concerned.  Likewise, if,  as  it  is  suggested,
reductions  in  anger are achieved in part by  improved  conflict
resolution and avoidance skills, this too would be expected to be
reflected in prisoners PROBE profiles.

                     o o o End Reviews o o o

Finally,  before  moving on to the introduction,  here  are  some
comments  from a) a past Director General, and b) an  independent
outside consultancy group on the PROBE system and its  management
prior  to the writing of this System Specification, and prior  to
the rather radical decisions about the system's future which were
made in early 1994.

    Mr X

    I  mentioned to you (and to Mr Y) the excellent  presentation
    that DPS had given me a fortnight or so ago on their work  in
    developing  PROBE.  This  is  just  to  put  on  record   the
    suggestions  that I made to them and passed on to you and  Mr
    Y.

    The  need  to  give a similar presentation on  PROBE  to  the
    various dispersal prisons groups (including senior members of
    the  Cat  A  section)  so  that  everyone  at  the   relevant
    management  levels  is  fully  seized of  the  value  of  the
    material that is available  - you may think it useful to give
    the material to a wider audience.

                                                  Mr W
                                                  25 June 1990

    'Before  launching  into  the  recommendations,  this  report
    wishes   to  stress  that  fundamentally,  PROBE  offers   an
    extremely high level of service to its users within the field
    Psychology  Units. They have access to  significant  computer
    processing  power,  to  a  powerful  and  flexible   database
    management  system  and  they  can  use  some   sophisticated
    software facilities for research and analysis work.

    In addition, there are surrounding controlling processes  for
    transferring  data  between sites, plus they have  access  to
    their own and other units' data, which have been  implemented
    so  as  not to interrupt the basic  service  provided  during
    normal working hours. Much of the credit for this must go  to
    DIP2 in developing such a sophisticated operating environment
    over  the  years  and to their  commitment  in  running  this
    operational system now.'

    (p.38, Hoskyns Report September 1993).

    Management of PROBE

    Finally,  because of the current production nature of  PROBE,
    serious consideration has been given to recommending that the
    system should be handed over to be run by PSITG. PSITG  would
    then  become  responsible for day to day  system  management,
    help  desk  support, training, etc, with DIP2 being  able  to
    concentrate on research and offering only specialist advice.

    Although  the  staff  within  DIP2  would  then  be  able  to
    concentrate  on  research,  there  would  still  be  a  staff
    requirement within PSITG to run the system. Such a move would
    therefore  have  a  cost  implication,  with  perhaps  little
    benefit from an improved service.

    As an entirely pragmatic approach, it is concluded  therefore
    that  the  system  continues to be run by DIP2,  but  with  a
    Project Board to provide direction and ensure that the system
    meets  the  needs  of  all  users  within  Headquarters   and
    operational establishments.'

    (P.42, Hoskyns Report, September 1993)

    'We  think of a science as comprising those truths which  are
    expressible in terms of 'and', 'not', quantifiers, variables,
    and   certain  predicates  appropriate  to  the  science   in
    question....To specify a science, within the described  mold,
    we still have to say what the predicates are to be, and  what
    the  domain of objects is to be over which the  variables  of
    quantification range.'

    W.V.O. Quine (1954)
    The Scope and Language of Science
    The Ways of Paradox and other essays p.242

    'Calculemus.'

    G W Leibniz (1679)

    'Thus   we  have  arrived  at  something   fundamental:   our
    conventions regarding the use of the words "not" and "or"  is
    such  that  in asserting the two propositions  "object  A  is
    either  red  or  blue"  and "object A is  not  red,"  I  have
    implicitly  already asserted "object A is blue." This is  the
    essence of so-called *logical deduction*. It is not then,  in
    any way based on real connections between states of  affairs,
    which  we  apprehend  in thought. On  the  contrary,  it  has
    nothing  at all to do with the nature of things,  but  drives
    from  our  manner  of speaking about  things.  A  person  who
    refused  to  recognize logical deduction  would  not  thereby
    manifest a different belief from mine about the behaviour  of
    things,  but he would refuse to speak about things  according
    to  the same rules as I do. I could not convince him,  but  I
    could  refuse to speak with him any longer, just as I  should
    refuse  to play chess with a partner who insisted  on  moving
    the bishop orthogonally.

    What logical deduction accomplishes, then, is this: it  makes
    us  aware  of all that we have implicitly asserted -  on  the
    basis  of  conventions  regarding the use of  language  -  in
    asserting  a  system of propositions, just as, in  the  above
    example,  "object  A is blue" is implicitly asserted  by  the
    assertion  of the two propositions "object A is red or  blue"
    and "object A is not red."

    In  saying this we have already suggested the answer  to  the
    question, which naturally must have forced itself on the mind
    of  every  reader  who has followed our argument:  if  it  is
    really   the  case  that  the  propositions  of   logic   are
    tautologies,  that  they  say  nothing  about  objects,  what
    purpose does logic serve?

     ..logical propositions, though being purely tautologous, and
    logical  deductions,  though being nothing  but  tautological
    transformations, have significance for us because we are  not
    omniscient. Our language is so constituted that in  asserting
    such and such propositions we implicitly assert such and such
    other  propositions - but we do not see immediately all  that
    we  have  implicitly  asserted in this  manner.  It  is  only
    logical deduction which makes us conscious of it.

    If I have succeeded in clarifying somewhat the role of logic,
    I  may  now  be  brief about the  role  of  mathematics.  The
    propositions  of mathematics are of exactly the same kind  as
    the  propositions  of logic: they are tautologous,  they  say
    nothing at all about the objects we want to speak about,  but
    concern  only  the  manner  in which  we  want  to  speak  of
    them....We  become aware of meaning the same by "2+3" and  by
    "5", by going back to the meanings of "2," "3," "5," "+," and
    making  tautological transformations until we just  see  that
    "2+3"   means  the  same  as  "5".  It  is  such   successive
    tautological  transformation that is meant by  "calculating";
    the  operations  of  addition and  multiplication  which  are
    learned  in  school  are  directives  for  such  tautological
    transformation;  every mathematical proof is a succession  of
    such  tautological transformations. Their utility, again,  is
    due to the fact that, for example, we do not by any means see
    immediately  that we mean by "24 x 31" the same as by  "744";
    but if we calculate the product "24 x 31", then we  transform
    it  step  by  step, in such a way  that  in  each  individual
    transformation  we  recognize  that  on  the  basis  of   the
    conventions regarding the use of the signs involved (in  this
    case  numerals and the signs "+" and "x") what we mean  after
    the transformation is still the same as what we meant  before
    it, until finally we became consciously aware of meaning  the
    same by "744" and by "24 x 31."

    ..at  first glance it is difficult to believe that the  whole
    of mathematics, with its theorems that it cost such labour to
    establish, with its results that so often surprise us, should
    admit  of being resolved into tautologies. But there is  just
    one little point which this argument overlooks: it  overlooks
    the  fact  that we are not omniscient. An  omniscient  being,
    indeed,  would  at once know everything  that  is  implicitly
    contained  in the assertion of a few propositions.  IT  would
    know  immediately  that  on  the  basis  of  the  conventions
    concerning  the  use of the numerals and  the  multiplication
    sign, "24 x 31" is synonymous with "744". An omniscient being
    has no need for logic and mathematics. We ourselves, however,
    first have to make ourselves conscious of this by  successive
    tautological  transformations, and hence it may  prove  quite
    surprising to us that in asserting a few propositions we have
    implicitly  also  asserted a proposition which  seemingly  is
    entirely different from them, or that we do mean the same  by
    two  complexes  of symbols which  are  externally  altogether
    different.'

    H Hahn (1933)
    Logic, Mathematics and Knowledge of Nature
    In Ayer (Ed) Logical Positivism (1959)

--
David Longley

--
David Longley (check end reply line #)

Longley Consulting                                                  London, UK
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