RESEARCH

Transforming Community Corrections

Co-Designing and Testing a New Framework for Supervision

Overview

Overview Our research Benefits of the project Partners Research team

Overview

Up to half of people exiting the Australian correctional system reoffend within two years, lacking the critical support needed for effective rehabilitation. This negative cycle imposes substantial physical, emotional, and economic costs on victims, communities, and the justice system. However, an effective, evidence-based supervision model that enables safe rehabilitation in the community remains a critical gap in correctional theory and practice.

To address this gap, this three-year Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Fellowship will develop and test a new framework for correctional supervision based on assisted desistance — an approach that focuses on how correctional practice can support the social and psychological processes involved in behaviour change.

Our Research

The project brings together criminological and psychological research to develop a model of supervision that supports the processes involved in desistance.

Significantly, and in a world first, it will engage end-users (people under supervision and correctional officers) to identify practices and mechanisms that may best support desistance from crime.

It will then test how these supervision practices impact on rehabilitative outcomes, and examine how the various psychological, social, and behavioural dimensions of desistance interact to produce long-term change.

Benefits of the Project

This project will generate powerful new understandings of what drives sustained reductions in reoffending and will provide insights for correctional agencies to improve rehabilitative outcomes.

In practical terms, project findings may be used to support more tailored and responsive service delivery, strengthen staff–client interactions, and inform the development of practice tools.

This offers significant benefits to justice-involved individuals, staff, and the broader community, including improved supervision experiences and outcomes, reduced reoffending, lower justice sector costs, and safer communities.

Research Partnerships

This project is being undertaken in partnership with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM), an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation. This partnership will ensure that Aboriginal perspectives inform the research and that the project considers how desistance-based approaches can be responsive to the experiences and needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who are significantly overrepresented in the correctional system.

This project is also supported by the South Australian Department of Correctional Services.

Research Team

This project is being undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in criminology and psychology, combined with practitioner experience and a strong track record of working with stakeholders to advance policy and practice.

Dr Melissa de Vel-Palumbo

Melissa de Vel-Palumbo is a Senior Research Fellow in Criminology at Flinders University and the Centre for Social Impact. Melissa's research focuses on rehabilitation, desistance and attitudinal change, with a particular interest in how psychological processes shape responses to crime and justice.

She has undertaken consultancy work for local and state governments, including research examining assisted desistance approaches in prison contexts, which provides the foundation for the current project developing an assisted desistance framework for correctional supervision. She has also trained as a clinical (forensic) psychologist.

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Joanne O'Connor

Joanne is a Barkindji, Meintangk and Boandik woman and PhD candidate at Flinders University. She was born and raised on Kaurna country, with connections to North-Western New South Wales and the South-East and Coorong regions of South Australia. She is also a Registered Clinical Psychologist, having worked in areas including Child Protection, Youth Justice, Aboriginal Health, Mental Health and Education.

Joanne has an interest in research that uses existing evidence and organisational data, lived experience and multidisciplinary practitioner knowledge to improve complex service systems. She takes a values-driven and holistic approach to bringing people together for equitable and just outcomes.

Leo McKenzie

Leo McKenzie is a Research Assistant in Criminology at Flinders University and a Research and Training Officer with Military and Emergency Services Health Australia. He also has experience working in custodial environments as a social support volunteer in Department for Correctional Services (DCS) prisons.

His research focuses on the wellbeing and development of the law enforcement and correctional workforce as well as the reintegration of people who have committed crimes, with a particular interest in co-design, co-analysis, and participatory action research.

Supporting Centres

Our project and research team are supported by two research centres:

Centre of Excellence for Prisoner Reintegration

The Centre of Excellence for Prisoner Reintegration (CEPR) is a collaborative centre based at Flinders.

It aims to transform how prisoner reintegration is understood and tackled in Australia with the aim of reducing recidivism, advancing social cohesion and community wellbeing.

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Centre for Social Impact

The Centre for Social Impact (CSI) is a national research and education centre dedicated to catalysing social change for a better world. CSI is built on the foundation of four of Australia’s leading universities: UNSW Sydney, The University of Western Australia, Flinders University and Swinburne University of Technology.

Our research develops and brings together knowledge to understand current social challenges and opportunities across domains such as social justice, homelessness and social systems reform, particularly by working with and for communities to deliver real world social change.

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