(1888PressRelease)
April 10, 2008 - Taking a leaf out of a popular TV quiz show has won the North Wales Criminal Justice Board a top award. ‘Ask the audience’ is a lifeline for contestants on ITV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and its now a real option for the Local Crime and Community Service Project in North Wales.
On TV, gameshow host Chris Tarrant gives competitors the chance to put a tricky multiple choice question to the audience who press buttons A to D on their keypads.
Then computer technology reveals the percentage of people who opt for each of the four possible answers.
For the last 12 months similar technology provided by Belfast-based Qwizdom has been helping magistrates and the North Wales Probation Service get their message over on how offenders are sentenced. They can illustrate lectures by putting tricky sentencing options to their audiences and seeing how they react.
It has won them a National Innovation Award, presented by Lord Justice Phillips in London for their use of technology. Magistrate Pat Thomas, a chair of both the Youth and Senior Panels on the Wrexham Bench, explained: “When you’re giving a talk to a group about sentencing you can often see that glazed look coming over their faces.
“But this way you can get the audience involved, get them taking part in the debate and also providing good feedback to us. “We link the system to the powerpoint presentation we are making through a laptop computer and at certain points we ask them for their opinion on sentencing or other matters.
“It makes them think about what you’re saying and very often gives them a real understanding of how sentencing works and how, for example, community orders are not soft options compared to jail.”
The presentations are made to groups ranging from voluntary and professional bodies like Women’s Institutes and business organisations to students and sixth forms.
Charlie Evans, Community Service Manager with the Probation Service in Flintshire, said: “The results from the audience flash up on the screen behind us. “We have a number of scenarios. One involves an old lady being treated in an ambulance when a man enters, steals her handbag and attacks the paramedic.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly given that information we get about 90 per cent of the audience saying he should be jailed but by the time we have explained the process and the nature of community sentences they come to understand and support other options.
“It’s also a simple and effective way of getting feedback at the end of a presentation rather than asking people to fill in forms and then having to collect them – all they have to do is press buttons.”
The system, which includes a plug-in computer programme, a presenter’s control device and 100 audience handsets similar to mobile phones, cost Ł4,000.
Criminal Justice Board Co-ordinator Derrick Evans said: “They are an amazing piece of kit and so simple and effective to us and there is a lot of interest in their use from elsewhere in the country now.”
So far it has been used in the Eastern Division of the North Wales Police area, covering Wrexham and Flintshire, but it is intended to roll it out across North Wales.
Mr Charlie Evans added: “We didn’t start doing this with the aim of winning an award we just felt there was a real need for it.”
Mrs Thomas added: “The whole concept is for people in the community to understand how and why we sentence and why we use community sentencing like unpaid work to show that the point is to combine punishment with rehabilitation.”
Gary Morrison, a director of Qwizdom in Belfast, said he was delighted to hear of the award: “Qwizdom’s voting system is used extensively across the public sector, including over 3000 schools, to encourage debate and discussion”, he said.
“We are very pleased to hear that the North Wales Criminal Justice Board has won an award for their innovative use of this technology.”
For more information on Qwizdom, please visit the web site at www.qwizdom.co.uk, tel: 02890 485 075 or send an e-mail to gary.morrison ( @ ) qwizdom dot co.uk.
