2 Preventing youth criminality
Context
16. Those who engage in anti-social or criminal
behaviour at a young age are more likely to become serious and
persistent offenders,[29]
therefore preventing youth offending is key to crime reduction.
In its written submission to our inquiry, the Government outlined
its approach to preventing youth criminality:
Better prevention to tackle problems before they
become serious or entrenched; more non-negotiable support to address
the underlying causes of poor behaviour; and tough enforcement
where behaviour is unacceptable.[30]
RISK FACTORS
17. Addressing the underlying causes of behaviour
demands an understanding of the factors which increase the likelihood
of offending. Such risk factors can by established by studying
offender backgrounds. Memoranda from the Youth Justice Board (YJB)
and the national youth charity Catch 22 cited virtually identical
lists, which have been identified by reviewing more than 30 years
of research in the United Kingdom, the United States and other
western countries. They can be grouped as follows:
Table 1: Risk factors influencing likelihood of
offending[31]
Family risk factors
| School risk factors
| Community risk factors
| Individual risk factors
|
Poor parental supervision and discipline
| Low achievement beginning in primary school
| Disadvantaged neighbourhood
| Hyperactivity and impulsivity
|
Family history of problem behaviours
| Aggressive behaviour in school (bullying)
| Community disorganisation and neglect
| Alienation and lack of social commitment
|
Family conflict | Lack of commitment to school, including truancy
| Availability of drugs |
Early involvement in crime and substance misuse
|
Parental involvement in /attitudes condoning problem behaviour
| Lack of engagement |
High turnover and lack of neighbourhood attachment
| Friendships with peers involved in crime
|
Low income and poor housing
| | | Poor mental health
|
A number of protective factors which can lessen the likelihood
of offending have also been identified. These include the opportunity
for pro-social involvement at school, school rewards for pro-social
involvement, family attachment, opportunities for pro-social involvement
in the family and family rewards for pro-social involvement.[32]
According to a 2005 report by the YJB:
The relationship between risk and protective factors, and the
precise ways in which they interrelate is uncertain. It is, nevertheless,
clear that risk factors cluster together in the lives of the most
disadvantaged children; and the chances that they will become
anti-social and criminally active increases as the number of risk
factors increases. [33]
18. The evidence given to our inquiry corroborated these findings.
Asked about the root causes of crime, witnesses tended to emphasise
poverty, family neglect, past victimisation and feeling unsafe,
under-achievement, a lack of positive role models and intergenerational
cycles of offending.[34]
The Governor of Reading Young Offenders Institution, Pauline Bryant,
agreed this reflected the typical experience of inmates.[35]
The Chief Executive of Nacro, Paul McDowell, highlighted the interconnected
nature of these factors from the crime reduction charity's experience
of working with offenders over the years:
Many different elements connected to social deprivation are probably
among the biggest causes. For instance, I refer to young people
who are excluded from school, do not have a sound education or
level of attainment, are unable to get employment and have not
had great role models in their family and upbringing, so there
is a broad lack of opportunity which leads them into crime.[36]
Breaking the cycle of offending is crucial. Some 7% of children
experience the imprisonment of a parent during their school years.[37]
Bob Ashford, Head of Youth Justice Strategy at the YJB, said that
in such circumstances it is "fairly likely" that the
young person will go on to start offending themselves.[38]
It is not just within families that role models are important;
User Voice emphasised the importance of having visible success
stories in the community to present an attractive alternative
to a criminal lifestyle.[39]
19. There was some slight disagreement about the relative
importance of family relationships and poverty as risk factors
for criminal behaviour. The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP and Graham
Allen MP, who have co-authored a book on the subject for the Centre
for Social Justice, argued that tackling Britain's "peculiarly
high level of family breakdown"[40]
is key to reducing crime. They write in their book that:
Successive governments have followed a short-term agenda, narrowly
focusing on the economic rather than on the real-life influences
on dysfunctional families. What this document shows is that child
poverty and income are only part of the picture ... Our parents
are the chief sculptors of our futures.[41]
They also cite research from the US carried out by
Ray Arthur, who concluded that:
Children from deprived backgrounds who avoided a
criminal record had tended to enjoy good parental care and supervision
in a less crowded home. The statistical connection between socioeconomic
status and children's early offending behaviour was entirely mediated
by family management practices.[42]
20. Other witnesses, while not denying the significance
of the family, argued that the underlying driver of crime is in
fact poverty. The Chief Executive of the National Youth Agency,
Fiona Blacke, said:
If you had asked me the questions about what were
the main causes of crime and disorder, I probably would have started
with poverty.[43]
Barnardo's drew our attention to interviews with
teenagers serving Detention and Training Orders carried out for
their 2008 publication Locking Up or Giving Up, in which
most children were from families that struggled financially, and
those involved in burglary and robbery said that they did so to
"get money".[44]
21. There is a debate about the extent to which
offending can be predicted from risk factors. On the one hand,
young people who have been exposed to the greatest risk are between
five and 20 times more likely to become serious and violent offenders
than those who have not.[45]
The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP drew our attention to the results
of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which tracked the fortunes
of families in New Zealand: by the age of 21 the boys identified
as being "at-risk" had two and a half times as many
criminal convictions as the group deemed not to be at-risk.[46]
Louise Casey informed us that around 90% of teenagers who are
recidivist criminals had conduct disorder as children.[47]
22. However, John Drew, Chief Executive of the
YJB, was clear that it is not possible to predict from birth whether
or not someone is going to commit a criminal offence.[48]
According to Professor Laycock, for the Jill Dando Institute of
Crime Science, around 33% of adult males born in 1953 had a criminal
conviction by the age of 46, significantly more than the number
of males who grow up in poverty or in dysfunctional families.[49]
In a recent paper the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice
Studies, Richard Garside, noted the high error rate in predicting
offenders from known risk factors: in one particular study, around
nine out of ten individuals identified as a significant homicide
risk in Pittsburgh did not go on to commit a homicide.[50]
He argues that risk factor analysis tends
to be much better at explaining links and associations after the
event than predicting future behaviour and suggests that the current
focus on the family may be politically expedient, citing fellow
academic John Pitt:
In a time when politicians are unwilling to countenance
robust social and economic intervention to counter social problems,
and eager to demonstrate that they are 'tough on crime', an analysis
which identifies poor child-rearing practices and weak parental
control as the fundamental problem, and a strategy which targets
families and classroom regimes and their capacity to inculcate
self-control in unruly and disruptive children ... is a political
godsend.[51]
23. This note of caution about predictions mirrored
a strong view expressed by the former offenders with whom we spoke,
that it is not possible to generalise too much about why people
commit crime and that this can in fact impede policy-making. For
example, not all of them came from broken homes or felt neglected
by their parents. Some did well at school and were employed at
the time of offending.[52]
24. The prevailing understanding
of the root causes of criminal behaviour is informed by many years
of international research. We were struck by a far greater cross-party
consensus about the causes of criminality than in the past, which
bodes well for consistent policy-making. Most witnesses outlined
a set of risk factors for offending which centred on family dysfunction,
school and community under-achievement and poverty. The evidence
suggests that these factors cluster in the lives of the most deprived
children, and that these children are significantly more likely
to offend than their counterparts who are not at-risk. The impact
of family relationships is crucial: good parental care is a strong
protective factor and should therefore constitute a key policy
objective. However, it is important that governments do not use
measures to promote parenting or support "problem" families
to mask the need to do more to reduce poverty in communities.
25. The ability to identify
those most at-risk of offending is an important tool in planning
and implementing preventative interventions. However, it is important
not to place too much emphasis on this: predicting offending is
by no means an exact science. Many individuals from deprived backgrounds
choose not to commit crime; conversely, many individuals who enjoyed
a privileged upbringing do. As many as 33% of males born in 1953
had a criminal conviction by the age of 46. Our discussions with
former offenders warned us against making assumptions about the
causes of offending behaviour: they did not all come from broken
homes or do poorly in school. Tackling these risk factors, whilst
a laudable aim in itself, should not form the entire basis of
crime prevention strategies.
APPROACH
26. Building on this understanding of risk factors,
the Government has stated it is committed to:
- Investing heavily in services
for families with very young children, including Sure Start Children's
Centres and extending Family Nurse Partnerships;
- Improving the quality, access and safety of youth
provision, including additional funding for targeted provision
through Positive Activities for Young People and funding new and
refurbished youth facilities, particularly on Friday and Saturday
nights;
- Providing targeted parenting provision and expanding
the use of Family Intervention Projects for the most challenging
families;
- Encouraging use of multi-agency street patrols
and police operations to engage and remove young people on the
cusp of offending to a place of safety, building on a network
of Safer Schools Partnerships and Youth Inclusion Projects, which
provide targeted support; and
- Intensifying action to tackle anti-social behaviour.[53]
Early intervention with young
children and their parents
27. The Government has attempted to improve the
outcomes for young children through the launch of Sure Start Centres
in 1998 to deliver childcare, early education, health and family
support, with an emphasis on outreach and community development.
This approach to family support drew praise from our witnesses[54],
including the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Chris Huhne MP and
voluntary sector organisations like Barnardo's:
One of the major accomplishments of the current Government
has been to embed into public policy the notion that government
has a legitimate role in promoting positive parenting.[55]
In evidence to our colleagues on the Children, Schools
and Family Committee on 14 December 2009, Barnardo's Chief Executive,
Martin Narey, elaborated:
When people ... ask me about what we should be doing
in the field of crime prevention, I do not talk about Youth Justice
Board schemes, I say, "Go and see Sure Start", because
that avenue towards a new start in life and towards a child doing
well educationally and what that means for aspirations, has dramatic
potential.[56]
Sure Start includes an element of health visiting.
Research in the US has found that the most promising achievements
in preventing criminality are to be found in home visitation programmes
where nurses, health visitors or social workers support and train
parents of young children.[57]
28. However, the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris
Grayling MP, drew attention to a criticism levelled at Sure Start,
that the support it offers is not reaching the right people.[58]
The programme was originally limited to deprived areas, although
it was open to all parents living in the catchment area regardless
of circumstance. With the move to Sure Start Children's Centres,
the programme has been extended to other geographical areas. Barnardo's
also argues for a greater focus on tailored provision for hard
to reach families who fail to engage with traditional parenting
support, particularly parents in the secure estate, young fathers
and Black and Minority Ethnic fathers.[59]
29. The Government is also piloting Family Nurse
Partnerships for a small number of families, based on a 30-year-old
US model of intensive, nurse-led home visiting for vulnerable,
first time, young parents shown to improve antenatal health, enhance
child development and school readiness, reduce child neglect and
improve father involvement. However, the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith
MP and Graham Allen MP argue that the Government's approach to
intensive family support does not go far enough in terms of the
numbers it covers and the level of intervention:
Not many are receiving what I would term early intervention.
There are some fantastic experiments, as it were, going on...
There is lots of good work but it is sporadic.[60]
Alan Given, Head of the Nottingham Crime and Drugs
Partnership, also warned that:
Early intervention is different to early reaction.
People often say, "What we will do is bring this programme
much earlier into somebody's offending behaviour" or, "We
will deal with them as soon as it happens rather than wait three
months." That is reacting early to the same problem.[61]
30. The One Nottingham partnership, of which
Graham Allen MP is Chair, is piloting an approach which includes
a range of measures for children aged 0-18, including training
in empathy and emotional competence, drug and alcohol education,
and housing, parenting skills and health care for teenage mothers.[62]
Such a strategy was supported by evidence to us from Barnardo's,
suggesting that a wider range of services should be available
for parents to access at a later stage, including during the transition
from primary to secondary education and during adolescence.[63]
31. The Government's approach
in relation to supporting young children and their parents, principally
through Sure Start, drew the most praise during our inquiry. Witnesses
agreed that improving outcomes for young children and bolstering
parenting support was extremely likely to be effective in long-term
prevention. Evidence suggests that health visiting is a particularly
key component. In order to reap the maximum benefits, schemes
must ensure that support is reaching the most deprived families,
and that parenting support is available throughout a child's life,
not just in the early years. The Government should pay close attention
to the package of early intervention measures being put into practice
by One Nottingham, with a view to encouraging their implementation
elsewhere, if demonstrated to be successful.
Early reaction
Enforcement
32. The effects of early intervention will take
at least a generation to be realised. In the meantime, the Government
aims to concentrate on low-level offending and anti-social behaviour
with a view to nipping problem behaviour in the bud. Longitudinal
analysis of the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey between 2003
and 2006 has shown that about a quarter of 10-25 year olds who
committed anti-social behaviour or used drugs in the first year
of the study went on to offend.[64]
But is the drive to reduce anti-social behaviour by young people
working? Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) were introduced
by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to play a major role in this
regard. The Minister of State responsible for crime and policing,
the Rt Hon David Hanson MP, told us that:
93% of individuals who receive an ASBO after their
third criminal justice intervention do not get involved in the
two years following that intervention in criminal activity again.
ASB interventions themselves (including ASBOs) are effective.[65]
33. However, evidence from Barnardo's highlighted
recent research from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions
and Crimeanother longitudinal study, involving 4,380 childrenwhich
concluded that the use of compulsory measures, such as ASBOs,
in the early stages of offending, tends to "label and stigmatise
young people", inhibiting the normal process of 'growing
out' of offending that would happen otherwise.[66]
The Youth Justice Board provided the following graph which shows
the tail-off in offending past the ages of 18 for males and 15
for females:
Figure 1: Offenders as a percentage of the population
by age, 2006, England and Wales[67]
34. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman, representing
the Association of Chief Police Officers, stressed the need to
balance enforcement with support:
If you just took ASBOs on their own, I would probably
not be supportive of them as a tool. But I think they are a really
important part of a range of different interventions
The point about an ASBO is that it should be part of a long-term
engagement with somebody and if the other approaches do not work
then the anti-social behaviour order should be the way of intervening.[68]
As of May 2004 magistrates may attach an Individual
Support Order to an ASBO made against young people aged between
10 and 17 years old which impose positive conditions on the young
person that are designed to tackle the underlying causes of their
anti-social behaviour. It is therefore disturbing to note that
only 11% of ASBOs handed down to under-18s in 2007 had an Individual
Support Order attached.[69]
35. The year 2006 also saw a 34% drop in the
number of new ASBOs issued, and research conducted for the YJB
revealed that nearly half of all orders were breached.[70]
The Minister of State responsible for crime and policing admitted
that he was "not happy" with the level of breaches which
are not followed through.[71]
Louise Casey told us:
The Home Secretary used the expression "coasting
on antisocial behaviour". I would agree with that
we cannot leave bad behaviour and low level crime and antisocial
behaviour unchecked.[72]
Perceptions of anti-social behaviour have improved
slightly17% of those surveyed for the British Crime Survey
in 2008/09 perceived high levels of anti-social behaviour around
them down from 18% in 2006/07[73]but
not dramatically. Anti-social behaviour is therefore back under
the spotlight. The Crime and Security Bill currently under parliamentary
consideration includes measures to increase the effectiveness
of ASBOs, including make Parenting Orders mandatory upon breach.[74]
36. This leads us to a wider point about the
stage at which offending behaviour is addressed by the system.
Chris Grayling MP argued that:
The criminal justice system
lets people get
away with it for too long
I want to fill what I perceive
to be a gap between first contact between the police and the offender
and the criminal justice system.[75]
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman also spoke of
the importance of a "short, sharp shock of some description".[76]
This view was reinforced by User Voice. One former offender told
us that his behaviour went unchallenged for a long time including,
crucially, by himself, despite regularly being arrested and charged.
It eventually took a custodial sentence for this to change. But
as we explore in the next chapter, such sentences bring a whole
raft of problems of their own.[77]
37. A further related point concerns bullying.
According to Professor Laycock:
One of the things I think we have got to do much
more systematically is deal with school bullying, especially where
it involves theft. To take a concrete example, in Ealing, when
we looked at street robbery in 2006, the
biggest increase
was an 84% increase in 16-year-old victims, 16 and below
and the perpetrators were other children. If you just think about
what they are learning
is that you can steal things and
nothing happens.[78]
The Safer Sutton Partnership also considered dealing
with bullying to be an important part of preventing future offending
behaviour. One of the functions of their new Life Centre is to
teach school groups about bullying.[79]
38. Given that a quarter of
young people who commit anti-social behaviour progress to more
serious offending, tough enforcement of anti-social behaviour
should have a positive impact on reducing crime. However, an Anti-Social
Behaviour Order (ASBO) will not achieve this end unless it is
both coupled with effective support interventions and is properly
supervised. There should be greater efforts to encourage the attachment
of Individual Support Orders to ASBOs and to follow-up the high
level of breaches.
39. Despite the introduction
of ASBOs and other forms of intervention with young people at
risk of offending, in many cases problem behaviour still goes
unchallenged for too long. It is important to find a mechanism
for dealing with this while avoiding criminalising young people.
Challenging bullying is one important component of this; we were
encouraged that in Sutton, for example, anti-bullying sessions
will form part of the provision in their new Life Centre, and
recommend that the results of this experience are shared with
other areas once evaluated.
FAMILIES
40. Family Intervention Programmes (FIPs) were
introduced as part of the Respect Agenda, to tackle the causes
of anti-social behaviour within families. The National Centre
for Social Research carried out an independent evaluation of the
53 FIPs set up during 2006 and 2007, published in 2008, which
found that:
- Typically FIPs were working
with families in their own homes for between six to 12 months.
- 885 families were referred to a FIP between February
and October 2007. Of these 78% met the referral criteria and agreed
to work with a FIP. 90 families completed the FIP intervention
during the evaluation period.
- While the level of anti-social behaviour declined
considerably, 35% of families were still engaged in anti-social
behaviour when they completed the intervention (the corresponding
figure at the start of the intervention was 92%).
- The proportion of families reported to have no
risk factors increased markedly from 1% at the start of working
with a FIP to 20% by the end of it. Where risk factors were still
present, there were considerable reductions in the number of risk
factors families were reported to have.
- The number of 5-15 year old children who were
reported to have educational problems declined from 37% at the
start of working with the FIP to 21% when they left.[80]
41. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman commented
that this approach of dealing with whole families seemed "hugely
expensive" given that it involves "almost man-to-man
marking" of family members.[81]
However, Louise Casey drew our attention to a 2004 piece of research
by which the Treasury showed that the average amount of money
already being spent on a problem family is between £250,000
and £330,000 a year. By contrast, the average cost of a Family
Intervention Project was between £8,000 and £20,000:
The families I am talking about [already] have a
panoply of social workers, youth offending team workers, housing
officers, police officers, ex-officers, floating support workers,
drugs people, domestic violence peopleupwards of 14 different
organisations and individualstaking an interest in those
families, but my point is that you need a collaborative enforcement
effort.[82]
42. The Minister of State responsible for crime
and policing, when asked for the Government's assessment of the
number of problem families nationwide, cited the Prime Minister's
announcement of the expansion of FIPs from 10,000 to around 56,000
families [in England] by 2015. He admitted that this was based
on an assessment of what was possible "in relation to funding
challenges".[83]
This figure differs significantly from the estimates of "dysfunctional
families" provided by the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP and
Graham Allen MP10% of the population, rising to 25% over
the next 20 years,[84]
although they base this on US, rather than UK, population estimates.
43. Given the importance of
family relationships as a factor influencing future offending,
interventions that focus on the behaviour of family units as a
whole would appear to be a useful crime prevention tool. An initial
evaluation of Family Intervention Programmes demonstrated their
potential to reduce anti-social behaviour and other forms of problem
behaviour, although we would advocate a further study that tracks
the long-term results of intervention over the coming years. This
level of family support does seem to be very expensive. However,
there are indications it can be cost-effective in the long run
given the extent of unco-ordinated contact that typically takes
place between problem families and the myriad statutory agencies
dealing with the implications of their behaviour. We consider
that it would be useful for the National Audit Office to undertake
further research in this area.
44. The Prime Minister recently
announced an extension of Family Intervention Programmes from
10,000 to 56,000 in 2015. The Home Office Minister admitted this
figure was calculated on the basis of available resources rather
than an assessment of the number of families who would benefit
from intervention. The Centre for Social Justice has estimated
that 10% of the population are growing up in "dysfunctional"
families, a figure likely to rise to 25% within 20 years on current
trends. Intervening to reduce these numbers would require a huge
level of resources. This gives greater weight to the argument
to intervene early with young children and their parents to prevent
the escalation of problem behaviour.
PARENTING ORDERS
45. Parenting Orders are another form of enforcement-related
supportive intervention. A Home Office study published in 1995
showed that 53% of surveyed males and 30% of surveyed females
who had
low or medium levels of parental
supervision had offended,
in comparison with 32%
of males and 14% of females who had experienced high levels of
parental supervision.[85]
An order can be given to the parents or carers of young people
who offend, truant or who have received an ASBO and usually require
attendance at counselling or guidance sessions for a period of
up to three months. They may also have conditions imposed on them
such as attending meetings with teachers at their child's school,
ensuring their child does not visit a particular place unsupervised
or ensuring their child is at home at particular times, which
can last for a period up to 12 months. Parents can be prosecuted
for failing to keep the requirements of the order.
46. Parenting Orders generally received a positive
reaction from our witnesses. Although the Government has not yet
carried out a formal evaluation of their effectiveness, the Minister
of State responsible for crime and policing believed that "they
are a valuable product and we are certainly encouraging their
use still further".[86]
The Youth Justice Board undertook an evaluation in 2002 of its
Development Fund parenting programmes, which found a reduction
in the levels of offending from 4.4 offences per young person
before parenting interventions were delivered, to 2.1 afterwards.[87]
The Liberal Democrat's Home Affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne MP,
agreed that parenting programmes could be effective; however,
their effectiveness would be increased if they were imposed prior
to offending behaviour, a point reiterated by Louise Casey.[88]
47. Louise Casey was also concerned that youth
courts have been attaching orders in too few cases, "only
about 1,000 or 1,500 in something like 60,000 individual offenders":
I was so frustrated over those years. It seemed to
me that people did not grip that if you did an ASBO on a young
person, you had to look at what was happening in their families.[89]
The Home Secretary admitted during a recent debate
on the Crime and Security Bill that Parenting Orders "have
not been used widely enough".[90]
The Home Office provided us with the following data.
Table 2: Parenting Orders by legal basis England
and Wales YOTs[91]
England and Wales
| 00-01 | 01-02
| 02-03 | 03-04
| 04-05 | 05-06
| 06-07 | 07-08
| Total |
Crime | 725
| 807 | 765
| 686 | 979
| 1,069 | 1,014
| 1,049 | 7,094
|
Education | 96
| 276 | 209
| 215 | 237
| 213 | 166
| 230 | 1,642
|
Other | 158
| 129 | 202
| 197 | |
| | | 686
|
Referral Order |
| | |
| 176 | 183
| 227 | 295
| 881 |
ASBO |
| | | | 36
| 33 | 64
| 46 | 179
|
Sex Offences Prevention Order
| | | |
| 0 | 0
| 1 | 0
| 1 |
Child Safety Order
| | | |
| 0 | 0
| 1 | 0
| 1 |
Free Standing-YOT
| | | |
| 7 | 7
| 16 | 8
| 38 |
Free Standing-LEA
| | | |
| 0 | 0
| 18 | 21
| 39 |
Total | 979
| 1,212 | 1,176
| 1,098 | 1,435
| 1,505 | 1,507
| 1,649 | 10,561
|
The Bill would require the authority pursuing an ASBO to prepare
a report on the person's family circumstances to encourage the
courts to give more consideration to the award of Parenting Orders.
48. Anecdotal evidence suggests
that Parenting Orders are an effective means of improving parent-child
interactions, a crucial protective factor against future offending.
Levels of use are disappointing, however. The Crime and Security
Bill currently going through Parliament would require the courts
to give consideration to attaching a Parenting Order when handing
down an ASBO, with attachment compulsory upon breach. There will
be good reasons why in some cases the award of a Parenting Order
is not appropriate but we hope that the legislation, if passed,
will be a useful tool in increasing parenting support. Youth offending
teams must ensure there is adequate provision to allow this to
take place. Ideally, those parents in need of support should be
able to access it before matters progress to this stage.
Re-directing funding to prevention
49. Section 37 of the Crime and Disorder Act
established that "it shall be the principal aim of the youth
justice system to prevent offending by children and young persons."
The YJB told us that the number of new entrants to the youth
justice system in England fell by 20% between 2007/08 and 2008/09.
However, this followed a rise in entrants during the preceding
years.[92] Both Barnardo's
and Catch 22 pointed to the low proportion of funding devoted
to prevention and argued for a greater proportion of funding to
be diverted to provide more timely support to young people at
risk of offending.[93]
The YJB appeared to agree with this analysis in its draft crime
prevention strategy published in 2007, which stated that:
The limited prevention funding for YOTs [youth offending
teams], until 2005, restricted our ability to promote the involvement
of YOTs in prevention work with young people prior to them entering
the Criminal Justice System
Early intervention is where
the greatest scope for successful crime prevention lies, and it
remains relatively unexplored and under-invested in.[94]
50. YJB evidence to our inquiry pointed to a
"significant expansion" in funding for targeted prevention
programmes made available from 2005/06, which allowed the agency
to allocate some funds for prevention to all youth offending teams
in England and Wales for the first time. This has been used to
finance initiatives such as Operation Staysafe and Triage, whereby
YOT workers are located in custody suites to ensure intervention
with young people starts at the earliest point from arrest, the
further promotion of Safer School Partnerships, Family Intervention
Programmes and an increased focus on parenting support.[95]
Bob Ashford said:
When the Youth Justice Board ... and the Youth Offending
Teams started just over ten years ago, the emphasis of both the
YJB and Youth Offending Teams was really on preventing re-offending.
What we have done over the last ten years is to shift that emphasis
away not just from preventing re-offending, which we have done
very successfully, but also to prevent offending in the first
place.[96]
However, the YJB admitted that, of its £511m
budget, only £36m or 7% is "specifically labelled as
prevention money".[97]
This sum had actually been cut by £2m from the previous year.[98]
51. The Chief Executive of the National Youth
Agency, Fiona Blacke, argued that if "even a small percentage"
of youth custodial budgets, which she said are in the region of
£360m, was focused on prevention, it would make an "absolutely
enormous difference".[99]
Local authorities who help to reduce the use of custody receive
no financial benefits as they do not pay the costs; the YJB has
had sole responsibility for purchasing and maintaining custodial
places for young people since 2000.[100]
Barnardo's recommended that:
Local authorities
carry the full costs for
those children sentenced to custody so that there is a greater
incentive for investment in prevention projects.[101]
This echoes calls last year from the Policy Exchange
think-tank.[102] The
YJB told us it is exploring how the role of local authorities
in preventing offending can be developed further: in principle
it favours improving financial incentives.
52. Despite the fact that the
principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending,
only 7% of the Youth Justice Board's £511m budget is ring-fenced
specifically for prevention. We are disappointed that initial
increases in recent years were diminished by a decrease of £2m
between 2008 and 2009. The large sums spent on incarcerating young
people means there is less money available for preventative activities.
There are currently no financial incentives for local authorities
to work towards reducing the use of custody, as the custody budget
is held centrally. We urge the Government to give consideration
to the introduction of such incentives.
Diversionary activities
53. The 2008 Crime and Communities Review concluded
that provision in the right places at the right time could help
divert more young people into constructive activities and away
from crime and anti-social behaviour. The Education and Inspections
Act 2006 introduced a new duty on local authorities, through their
children's trust arrangements, to secure access to sufficient
positive leisure-time activities for young people in their area.
This covers both recreational and educational provision, and includes
a specific requirement to secure access to youth work activities.
This legislation underpins the Government's ten year strategy
for positive activities, Aiming high for young people,
launched in July 2007. A key component of Aiming high is
Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) funding, which aims
to engage disaffected young people in high quality positive activities.
In 2008/09, the government gave 15 local authorities a total of
£6.5m additional PAYP funding to test out innovative approaches
to involve the most disengaged young people in positive activities.
All local authorities are receiving additional PAYP funding over
the next two years£28m in 2009/10 and £48m in
2010/11to help them develop year round personalised provision
for the most disadvantaged and disengaged young people.[103]
54. Louise Casey told us that despite this increase
in funding, youth services were not delivering effective programmes
for young people:
We still have a way to go in getting a commonsense
approach to youth activities
One of the least reformed
areas of public service has to be the Youth Service. In some areas
of the country they are working to term times.[104]
Eight out of ten parents or carers, and six out of
ten teenagers say there is not enough for young people to do in
their area.[105] User
Voice's Adnan Mohammed, speaking from his experiences of growing
up in South London, agreed that:
When we needed to see people or needed to be interacted
with, it was not nine to five, it was unsociable hours, maybe
12 o'clock in the morning, on the streets.[106]
55. The Chief Executive of the National Youth
Agency, Fiona Blacke, considered that provision was improving:
I have to say I rather take a different stance
in relation to the number of local authorities which are attempting
to deliver [out of hours services]. I think many of them are
attempting to move services towards that.[107]
The Youth Crime Action Plan (YCAP) included
a specific focus on weekend provision, setting out the Government's
commitment to ensuring that more youth centres stay open late
at weekends and evenings, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays.
The importance of weekend provision is also reflected in the criteria
for the £270m myplace capital investment programme,
and in the £22.5mYouth Capital Fund Plus initiative.[108]
56. We asked Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman
if the police had noticed any correlation between the advent of
Positive Activities for Young People, especially on Friday and
Saturday nights, and crime levels. He replied:
Our indications are that, in those areas where additional
funds have been made available and, in particular, an additional
focus has been made, there has been a decrease in the amount of
antisocial behaviour and violence. I think, though, that there
are so many complex things happening at the same time that it
would be wrong to draw a conclusion that it was just that one
element that made a difference.[109]
57. It is interesting to note that "diversion
to leisure or recreation facilities" is included in a list
of measures proven not to work in preventing criminality,
cited in a Home Office research study. In respect of this list,
the authors conclude:
Many of these were based on single measure interventions
and it is now accepted that, to be effective, prevention programmes
need to comprise a range of complementary measures which target
multiple risk factors within the primary domains of a child's
life.[110]
This need for complementary interventions came across
in the evidence we received from several successful projects.
Cricket for Change, based in Surrey, runs a number of diversionary
programmes including 'Street20' Cricket, played in crowded urban
environments on housing estates and with community groups throughout
London over the last three years. Acting Chief Executive Andy
Sellins told us that:
The key elements ... are that we are there all the
time, that we have a positive, often male role model, who is their
cricket coach but is so much more than their cricket coach ...
It is about having that young person out with one
of our team
day in, day out showing them first about turning
up on time, being responsible for your actions, building positive
adult relationships ... This is a revelation to a lot of the kids.[111]
Adam Halls, a former client and now Development Manager
for the organisation clarified that:
Cricket is very much the carrot that we dangle. It
is more youth engagement and almost being a youth worker.[112]
58. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman agreed
that diversionary activities work where they involve young people
in a process over a long period of time "where they are engaged
with other people who set a series of values and expectations
for them and enforce them".[113]
Fiona Blacke also noted the importance for at-risk young people
of having a long-term relationship with a trusted adult, as this
is something often missing from their lives.[114]
59. John Dennis and Steve Bell described the
work they contribute to in Keighley, encouraging young people's
participation in sport particularly through the Oakbank Sports
College, the national Positive Futures programme and the sportKeighley
partnership:
Will such work reduce crime? The answer is probably
"not on its own" but it will certainly help as part
of a co-ordinated approach
The key is to create the knowledge
and confidence to access the available options and to make a positive
lifestyle exciting, cool, challenging and "sexy" enough
to be a viable alternative to boredom and crime.
They also warned about the need to be realistic about
the long-term impacts of participation:
There is, for most people, a "glow" that
comes from an uplifting and intense experience, one that pretty
soon fades when returning to life's everyday challenges
Whilst the short-term impacts of a sporting "diversionary"
programme can be very profound and positive for a young person
involved in any particular programme on an individual basis, the
social conditions that lead youngsters into criminal activity
still prevail.[115]
This was very much the experience described by former
offenders with User Voice.[116]
In order to maximise the effects, John Dennis and Steve Bell argue:
The concept of "getting out only what is put
in" needs to be built-in. There is in a sense here the need
to incorporate strongly into programmes the concept of "investment"
(of time, effort and money) and of "responsibility"most
people have to invest their time and efforts in order to create
the space and opportunity for doing what they wish to do.
[117]
60. It is disturbing to note that, despite an
"overwhelmingly positive" response to Positive Futures
in Keighley, the local scheme was wound down in 2006/07 because
of a lack of funding.[118]
The National Youth Agency warned that the indications from a survey
of heads of integrated youth services in England were that funding
issues are likely to worsen:
In almost every area people are being asked to plan
for significant cuts in youth services, sometimes in excess of
a third of those budgets. It is not that local authorities think
they are unimportant or that directors of children's services
think these are unimportant services; the problem is that once
you take direct schools grant out of the local authority equation
for children's services and they are having to make 10% cuts
you are finding that there is a much bigger hit on youth services
than you might expect.[119]
Positive Activities for Young People, for example,
is not a discrete, ring-fenced budget and is therefore at risk.
61. The Audit Commission drew our attention to
its recent study Tired of Hanging Around, published in
January 2009. This found that preventive projects are cost-effectivea
young person who starts showing behavioural problems at the age
of five and is dealt with through the criminal justice system
costs the taxpayer over £200,000 by the age of 16, while
one given support to stay out costs less than £50,000but
a general lack of data on costs and performance constrains effective
commissioning, national funding arrangements are inefficient and
projects depend on unreliable short-term funding that is expensive
to administer. A typical project leader spends a third of their
time chasing new funds and reporting to their current funders
but the full cost of applying for smaller grants can exceed the
value of the grant. Most funding arrangements last for fewer than
three years: this limits the effectiveness and sustainability
of projects. [120]
This latter point was reiterated by John Dennis and Steve Bell:
Funding is paramount, but so too is the co-ordination
of such funding so that pragmatic and beneficial programmes with
sustainable outcomes are mutually supported and are "built-in"
to mainstream services and thus have long-term prospects. A series
of short-term, effectively "ad-hoc" projects, no matter
how good, cannot seriously expect to fundamentally change the
behaviour of existing and future generations.[121]
62. Determining the type of activities run ideally
requires user input to be successful. The same Audit Commission
study found that young people are "rarely" consulted
when planning new activities.[122]
Adnan Mohammed told us:
The social activities that were put on by charities,
clubs, social clubs, anything like that, the people that I knew
and I grew up with that were in my area would not attend anything
to do with any of that.[123]
The Government has pledged that young people will
have control of 25% of youth budgets by 2018.[124]
63. The expansion of the Positive
Activities for Young People (PAYP) initiative to provide diversionary
activities on Friday and Saturday nights is to be welcomed, considering
the historical deficiencies in youth service provision. The police
have witnessed a reduction in problem behaviour on the part of
young people following this expansion, although their representative
acknowledged the difficulty in linking the two directly, as it
was accompanied by additional preventative measures.
64. Properly planned diversionary
activities are valued by young people but will not reduce crime
on their own. After they have taken part in such activities, young
people return to find the challenges they face in their home and
their community unchanged. The real benefit of such activities
from a crime-prevention perspective is the exposure to positive
role models and a glimpse of the attractions of a crime-free lifestyle,
through interaction with a "trusted adult" who helps
the young person to develop their self-esteem and to take responsibility
for their own actions.
65. In order to have a preventative
effect, successful schemes must therefore receive long-term financial
support to ensure such interactions can be sustained. We were
inspired by the work of organisations working with at-risk young
people, such as Cricket for Change, but depressed by tales of
hard work falling by the wayside because of a lack of money. The
Government and local authorities should make it easier for such
voluntary organisations to thrive by providing funding on a longer-term
basis and decreasing the bureaucratic burden; and prioritise organisations
that include design input from potential users.
Schools
66. User Voice argued that children from deprived
backgrounds are not ready to start academic learning at the age
of five. The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP cited scientific evidence
showing that the brains of neglected children do not develop at
the normal rate, which puts them at a distinct disadvantage compared
with their peers at the beginning of their formal education.[125]
User Voice argued that the education system should focus more
on conflict resolution and emotional learning in order to meet
their needs.[126] A
Home Office crime prevention study found that this opinion is
supported by the existing research:
Schools
where children feel emotionally as
well as educationally supported, are those which are best placed
to protect their pupils from engaging in criminal behaviour.[127]
Conflict resolution is one of the activities undertaken
by Safer Schools Partnerships. Launched in September 2002, partnerships
place a dedicated police officer within a school or a collection
or schools. Over 450 Safer School Partnerships now exist and the
Youth Crime Action Plan committed the Government to their further
expansion.[128]
67. As we would have expected from evidence given
to our previous inquiries,[129]
User Voice emphasised the importance of the transition from primary
to secondary school in forming a child's life chances, including
their likelihood of offending. They advocated the use of mentorsnot
teachers but non-authoritarian figures who children can relate
toto provide emotional support for this process.[130]
There are a number of mentoring programmes in existence for socially
excluded young people. In the main they appear to take place outside
of schools but the Mentoring and Befriending Organisation does
promote the expansion of peer mentoring opportunities for children
and young people within primary and secondary schools through
a national contract funded by the Department of Children, Schools
and Families.[131]
68. A mentoring study undertaken by researchers
from the London School of Economics found that the young people
engaged in the Mentoring Plus programmes run by Crime Concern
and Breaking Barriers responded positively to mentoring, and that
although there was no clear evidence that the programme had an
impact in relation to offending, it did have a positive impact
in relation to engagement with education, training and work, one
of the risk factors for offending.[132]
69. Young children from deprived
backgrounds are less likely to develop emotional intelligence,
self-esteem and basic conflict-resolution skills in the home.
We consider that the early years of schooling should therefore
place more focus on these areas, and advocate further expansion
of the conflict resolution activity undertaken by Safer Schools
Partnerships. The transition from primary school to secondary
school has been highlighted as particularly important in affecting
a child's life chances, including their risk of offending. Former
offenders told us that they would have benefited from a mentor
to help them through this process. The Department for Children,
Schools and Families should give consideration to expanding the
peer mentoring scheme that currently operates in some schools,
with a particular focus on making provision available for pupils
about to start secondary school and encouraging the use of mentors
who have undergone similar experiences to children judged to be
at-risk of offending.
29 John Graham, "What works in preventing criminality",
Reducing offending: an assessment of research evidence on ways
of dealing with offending behaviour, Home Office Research
Study 187, 1998, p 7 Back
30
Ev 83 [Home Office] Back
31
Based on data provided in Ev 134 [Youth Justice Board]; Ev 108-9
[Catch 22] Back
32
Ev 109 [Catch 22] Back
33
Youth Justice Board, Risk and Protective Factors, 2005,
Summary, p 29 Back
34
See for example Q 284 [Mr Duncan Smith MP], Qq 242-253 [DAC Jarman];
Q 278 [Mr Allen MP] Back
35
Q 191 Back
36
Q 159 Back
37
Prison Reform Trust, Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile,
November 2009, p 3 Back
38
Q 102 Back
39
Annex A Back
40
Q 278 [Mr Duncan Smith MP] Back
41
Graham Allen MP and Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Early Intervention:
Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens, Centre for Social
Justice, September 2008, p 24 Back
42
Ibid, pp 21-22 Back
43
Qq 50-1 Back
44
Barnardo's, Locking up or giving up? Is custody for children
always the right answer? London, 2008 Back
45
Youth Justice Board, Risk and Protective Factors, 2005,
p 32 Back
46
Q 283 Back
47
Q 4 Back
48
Q 85 Back
49
Q 376, citing Home Office research published in 2001 Back
50
Richard Garside, Risky People or Risky Societies? Rethinking
interventions for young adults in transition, Centre for Crime
and Justice Studies, December 2009, p 8 Back
51
Ibid., p 11 Back
52
Annex A Back
53
Ev 83 [Home Office] Back
54
Q 53; Q 260 Back
55
Ev 103 Back
56
Uncorrected transcript of oral evidence taken before the Children,
Schools and Families Committee on 14 December 2009, HC (2009-10)
130-ii, Q 178 Back
57
John Graham, "What works in preventing criminality",
Reducing offending: an assessment of research evidence on ways
of dealing with offending behaviour, Home Office Research
Study 187, 1998, p 8 Back
58
Q 356 Back
59
Ev 103 Back
60
Q 281 [Mr Allen] Back
61
Q 280 Back
62
Graham Allen MP and Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Early Intervention:
Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens, Centre for Social
Justice, September 2008, p 105 Back
63
Ev 104 Back
64
Jon Hales et al, Longitudinal analysis of the Offending, Crime
and Justice Survey 2003-06, Home Office, November 2009 Back
65
Q 313 Back
66
Ev 104 Back
67
Ev 126 Back
68
Q 252 Back
69
Home Office data cited in Anti-social behaviour order statistics,
Standard Note SN/SG/3112, House of Commons Library, 30 October
2009, p 16 Back
70
" A short history of the ASBO", The Guardian,
27 August 2008, www.guardian.co.uk Back
71
Q 314 Back
72
Q 19 Back
73
Alison Walker, John Flatley, Chris Kershaw and Debbie Moon (eds),
Crime in England and Wales 2008/09, Home Office, July 2009,
p 100 Back
74
Crime and Security Bill, clause 38 (2009-10) Back
75
Q 350 Back
76
Q 242 Back
77
Annex A Back
78
Q 392 Back
79
Q 432 Back
80
Clarissa White, Martha Warrener, Alice Reeves and Ivana La Valle,
Family Intervention Projects: An Evaluation of their Design, Set-up
and Early Outcomes, National Centre for Social Research, 2008 Back
81
Q 249 Back
82
Q 10 Back
83
Q 315 Back
84
Q 278 Back
85
John Graham and Benjamin Bowling, Young people and crime,
Home Office Research Study 145, 1995, Table 4.1 Back
86
Q 325 Back
87
Ev 136 Back
88
Qq 260, 30 Back
89
Q 18 Back
90
HC Dec, 18 January 2010, col 27 [Commons Chamber] Back
91
Ev 136 Back
92
Ev 135 Back
93
Ev 102 [Barnardo's]; Ev 105 [Catch 22] Back
94
Youth Justice Board, Towards a Youth Crime Prevention Strategy,
March 2007, p 4 Back
95
Ev 136 Back
96
Q 102 Back
97
Q 89 Back
98
"Youth offending teams begin to feel the pinch", Children
and Young People Now, 13 August 2009, www.cpynow.co.uk Back
99
Q 38. The most recent figure for youth custody expenditure, for
2008/09, was lower at 298m: HC Deb, 25 February 2010, 665W [Commons
written answer] Back
100
Ev 136 Back
101
Ev 101 Back
102
Max Chambers, Arrested Development-reducing the number of young
people in custody while reducing crime, Policy Exchange, July
2009 Back
103
National Youth Agency, Positive Activities for Young People:
Expanding Friday and Saturday Night Provision, July 2009,
p 3 Back
104
Q 16 Back
105
Audit Commission, Tired of hanging around-using sport and leisure
activities to prevent anti-social behaviour by young people,
January 2009, p 2 Back
106
Q 52 Back
107
Q 47 Back
108
National Youth Agency, Positive Activities for Young People:
Expanding Friday and Saturday Night Provision, July 2009,
p 3 Back
109
Q 248 Back
110
John Graham, "What works in preventing criminality",
Reducing offending: an assessment of research evidence on ways
of dealing with offending behaviour, Home Office Research
Study 187, 1998, p 16 Back
111
Qq 441, 446 Back
112
Q 451 Back
113
Q 250 Back
114
Q 49 Back
115
Ev 120, 123 Back
116
Annex A Back
117
Ev 124 Back
118
Ev 122 Back
119
Q 64 Back
120
Audit Commission, Tired of Hanging Around-using sport and leisure
facilities to prevent anti-social behaviour by young people,
January 2009, pp 24, 76-82 Back
121
Ev 124 Back
122
Audit Commission, Tired of Hanging Around-using sport and leisure
facilities to prevent anti-social behaviour by young people,
January 2009, pp 2-4 Back
123
Q 52 Back
124
Q 56 Back
125
Q 278 Back
126
Annex A Back
127
John Graham, "What works in preventing criminality",
Reducing offending: an assessment of research evidence on ways
of dealing with offending behaviour, Home Office Research
Study 187, 1998, p 13 Back
128
Ev 138 [Youth Justice Board] Back
129
See for example Home Affairs Committee, Seventh Report of Session
2008-09, Knife Crime, HC121 Back
130
Annex A Back
131
Memorandum submitted to the Children, Schools and Families Committee
by the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, December 2009 Back
132
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Mentoring disaffected young people:
an evaluation of 'Mentoring Plus', June 2004 Back
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