9. Supplementary memorandum
submitted by the Barrow Cadbury Trust
SUMMARY
This additional submission follows the inquiry's
oral hearing of 16 January 2007 and covers five new pieces of
evidence:
(1) Information on the development of T2A
pilots by the Barrow Cadbury Trust.
(2) A review of private sector provision
of employment services for young adults in the criminal justice
system conducted by the Social Market Foundation for Barrow Cadbury
Trust (not printed).
(3) Additional evidence concerning the evaluation
of the impact of projects arising from the Commission on Young
Adults and the Criminal Justice System and a subsequent partnership
with Revolving Doors Agency.
(4) Further evidence about intelligent sentencing
of young adults.
(5) Information on the link between ethnicity
and deprivation as a key risk factor in criminality.
1. BARROW CADBURY
T2A PILOTS
1.1 During 2006 Barrow Cadbury have been
developing three T2A pilots. We are currently drafting an implementation
handbook and business case model for T2A in the West Midlands
in partnership with the Office of Public Management while Nacro
are developing a T2A bail support project on our behalf across
the Youth Offending Team and Probation in Yorkshire and Humberside
aimed at reducing numbers of young adults on remand. A third potential
pilot may be implemented in Gateshead. Later in the year Barrow
Cadbury will be issuing a call to projects to manage these and
other potential pilots. The pilots will be fully evaluated.
2. EMPLOYMENT
PROJECTS AS
A SOLUTION
TO REDUCING
REOFFENDING AMONG
YOUNG BLACK
MEN
2.1 Having a stable and satisfying job is
a key way of reducing involvement of young black men in offending.
Barrow Cadbury Trust commissioned the Social Market Foundation
to review a number of private sector schemes which aim to train
or place young ex-offenders, or those trying to be ex-offenders
in work, including schemes run by Transco, Toyota, Marks and Spencer,
and United Utilities. Schemes fell into two categories: business-driven
schemes and social responsibility-led schemes. The report identified
features which make programmes successful, whether they are aimed
at young adults firmly entrenched in offending and hence further
away from the labour market, or aimed at those closest to job-readiness.
Success features included: having a champion within the company;
having a close partnership with Young Offender Institutions to
identify suitable participants; and mentoring from other company
employees to support participants. The short report is appended
to this additional submission (not printed).
2.2 Barrow Cadbury Trust is currently working
with Commissioner and former head of Corporate Social Responsibility
at Marks and Spencer, Ed Williams, and Business in the Community
(BiTC) to draft a best practice guide for employers considering
setting up an employment scheme for young ex-offenders. The project
has already established a "leadership group" of employers
willing to champion the cause of employing young adult ex-offenders.
The project will launch the best practice guide later in the year.
3. EVALUATING
IMPACT
3.1 Prior to the oral hearing, the Committee
asked Barrow Cadbury Trust to reflect on how to evaluate impact
of projects on the ground. The report of the Commission on Young
Adults and the Criminal Justice System identified that while the
range of social, economic and environmental factors which underpin
or lead to offending or desistance is well known, the success
or otherwise of the component parts of the criminal justice system,
including projects aimed at reducing reoffending is at present
measured almost solely by reconviction rates. Yet reconviction
rates are as much a measure of the performance of the criminal
justice system as reoffending and is rarely suitable as the sole
outcome measure particularly for small voluntary and community
sector projects. Small numbers progress through these programmes
rendering meaningful statistical analysis of reconviction rates
obsolete. To continue to measure impact solely on reconviction
rates risks giving the impression that nothing works while ignoring
potential positive social outcomes.
3.2 Distance travelled methodologies for
measuring impact which look at an individual's starting point
have been accepted or even promoted by departments other than
the Home Office. This is not a case of choosing "soft"
versus "hard" outcomes, but instead means having an
evaluation methodology which is realistic and sensitive enough
to measure all outcomes.
3.3 Barrow Cadbury has been working with
Revolving Doors Agency (RDA) to develop measurements of social
outcomes for young people who progress through their programme
which is also pertinent as an example of good practice for other
programmes. RDA are currently piloting these measures and we will
look to launch in the coming months.
4. INTELLIGENT
SENTENCING
4.1 Among the recommendations of the Lost
in Transition report was for more intelligent sentencing that
takes into account the age and maturity of young adults. Given
the current crisis in prison overcrowding this is a particularly
salient issue. Ensuring that only those who need to go into custody
do so is key to ensuring that resources in the criminal justice
system are appropriately focused on those who have committed serious
and or persistent offences. Currently the young offender estate
contains a large proportion of 18-20 year olds who are on remand
or who have committed relatively minor offences who may not need
to be in custody.
4.2 England and Wales, along with Estonia
and Latvia are the only countries in Europe which have no special
rules regarding the sentencing of young adults (other than the
sentence of detention to a young offender institute). In September
2003 the Council of Europe passed the Recommendation No. (2003)
20 on "new ways of dealing with juvenile delinquency and
the role of the juvenile justice system". This stated that;
"Reflecting the extended transitions to adulthood, it should
be possible for young adults under the age of 21 to be treated
in a way comparable to juveniles and to be subject to the same
interventions, when the judge is of the opinion that they are
not as mature and responsible for their actions as full adults."
4.3 Barrow Cadbury Trust will be working
with the International Centre for Prison Studies and the Prison
Reform Trust to assess good sentencing practice from relevant
European countries and impact on offending. The report will be
available in the coming months.
5. THE LINK
BETWEEN ETHNICITY
AND DEPRIVATION
AS A
KEY RISK
FACTOR IN
OFFENDING
5.1 Young African Caribbean men are not
genetically predisposed to commit more crime than young white
men. A recent report commissioned by Barrow Cadbury Trust from
the Centre for Migration, Policy and Society at Oxford University[20]
examined the relationship between poverty and the ethnic background
of the population living in Birmingham wards and highlighted the
potential reasons for high levels of crime among black African
Caribbean young men. A strong correlation between poverty and
concentration of ethnic minorities is found in Birmingham wards.
While the white population as well as the most successful minority
groups moved from the inner city to relatively less deprived areas,
disadvantaged communities remain "trapped" in the least
desirable neighbourhoods. The most deprived wards containing a
concentration of ethnic minorities also contain sub-areas where
crime is a substantive problem. These are the same areas where
the report finds that access to legitimate employment for young
black men is most problematic and statistical levels of unemployment
among young men the highest. Poverty by itself does not create
crime but it certainly creates the conditions in which young black
men grow up with few perceived legitimate alternatives.
5.2 Given that most crime committed by young
people takes place at the level of the neighbourhood, and given
the high level of concentration of ethnic minorities in Birmingham
wards, it is not surprising that most crime committed by young
black men is committed against other black people.
February 2006
20 Mapping of Race and Poverty in Birmingham
by Alessio Cangiano, ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society,
Oxford University. Back
| 
