Compass's empirical and theoretical background
The Compass programme draws on a strong body of evidence and, for the first time, puts into practice the SAT approach.
Compass's empirical and theoretical background
There is a significant body of research supporting the importance of morality in crime (Pauwels, Svensson & Hirtenlehner, 2018; Wikstrom et al, 2012).
Following almost 20 years of situational action theory (SAT) development (Wikström, 2019), Wikström and colleagues have carried out multiple tests of the importance of weak morality in crime.
The proposed intervention flows directly from the explanatory framework provided by SAT which is a general theory of crime that has morality at its core.
The key theoretical - and empirically tested - insights from SAT are that changes in morality statistically correspond to significant changes in crime at the individual level (Wikstrom, Mann & Hardie, 2018).
SAT proposes that all acts of crime are acts of moral rule-breaking, and crucially, finds substantial evidence that morality is the key contributor to crime when testing against many other factors, such as self-control.
SAT has been tested with overwhelming support in over one hundred peer-reviewed publications, but there is a lag in its application to intervention testing.
The premise that the development of morality in childhood, adolescence and adulthood is continual and malleable allows for an opportunity to intervene (Malti, and Ongley, 2014). As such, weak morality presents fertile ground for intervention development.