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Youth, Crime and Community Safety Overview

Introduction

The field of youth, crime and community safety is a fast changing environment. In order to work in partnership or to access government funding it is vital that the voluntary and community sector stay informed of changes in government policy. The following is a quick overview of the main policy changes in the area with the aim of providing a 'jumping off' point for further reading.

Every Child Matters

Change for Children is a new approach to the well-being of children and young people from birth to age 19. The Government's aim is for every child, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to:

Be healthy
Stay safe
Enjoy and achieve
Make a positive contribution
Achieve economic well-being

This means that the organisations involved with providing services to children - from hospitals and schools, to police and voluntary groups - will be teaming up in new ways, sharing information and working together, to protect children and young people from harm and help them achieve what they want in life. Children and young people will have far more say about issues that affect them both collectively and individually.

Over the next few years, every local authority will be working with its partners, through children's trusts, to find out what works best for children and young people in its area and act on it. They will need to involve children and young people in this process, and when inspectors assess how local areas are doing, they will listen especially to the views of children and young people themselves.

In March 2005, the first Children's Commissioner for England was appointed, to give children and young people a voice in government and in public life. The Commissioner will pay particular attention to gathering and putting forward the views of the most vulnerable children and young people in society, and will promote their involvement in the work of organisations whose
decisions and actions affect them.

In addition, the Children's Fund was launched in November 2000 to tackle disadvantage among children and young people. The programme aims to identify at an early stage children and young people at risk of social exclusion, and make sure they receive the help and support they need to achieve their potential.

www.everychildmatters.gov.uk

Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRP's)

The Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 and in particular Section 17 imposes a duty on local authorities and the police to 'do all it reasonably can to prevent crime and disorder in its area'. The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act established Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships.

The CDRP in each borough have representation from statutory, voluntary and private organisations with a role in crime reduction.
CDRP's are primarily funded by the Home Office. They use the following process:

Establishing the type and levels of crime and disorder in their borough through an audit.
Consulting widely with the borough population to make sure that the partnership's perception of crime and disorder matches that of local people. Minority groups are particularly encouraged to have an input.
Devising a strategy containing measures to tackle those priority problems, including an action plan, targets and a responsible individual/organisation.
The strategy lasts for three years, but must be kept under review by the partnership.

The work of the CDRPs is parallel to national government strategies and targets and also considers national policing plans.

The Prolific and Other Priority Offenders Strategy

It is estimated that out of a million active offenders, 100,000 have three or more convictions and are responsible for half of all crime. The active offender population is not static, 20,000 individuals leave this pool every year and are replaced by another 20,000. The most active 5,000 of this group are estimated to be responsible for one in ten offences.

In September 2004 the prolific and other priority offender strategy was implemented nationally. The strategy has three parts:

Prevent and Deter - To stop people (overwhelmingly young people) engaging in offending behaviours and graduating into prolific offenders.
Catch and Convict - Actively tackling those who are already prolific or other priority offenders.
Rehabilitate and Resettle - Working with identified prolific offenders to stop their offending by offering a range of supportive interventions. Offenders will be offered the opportunity for rehabilitation or face a very swift return to the courts.

This strategy is led by the CDRP, with schemes set up to cover every CDRP. The emphasis will be on a multi-agency approach with the Police, CPS, Prisons and Probation Service working together with London Criminal Justice Board co-ordination. The aim is to effectively catch, convict, monitor and manage these offenders in the community or custody and work towards rehabilitating them.

Prevent and Deter

Principal aim: To stop the most active young offenders escalating into tomorrow's prolific offenders through youth justice interventions and continued post-sentence support.
Supporting aim: To prevent children and young people becoming involved in criminality in the first place through early identification of those most at risk, and intensive targeting programmes

There are two clear target groups:

- The most active young offenders at greatest risk of becoming future adult or juvenile PPOs.
- Those on the cusp of offending or engaged in lower level offending, to prevent them from becoming more active young offenders and entering the pool of young people at risk of becoming future PPOs.

www.crimereduction.gov.uk/

Local Area Agreements

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three year agreement that set out priorities as agreed between central government and a local area represented by a local authority and local strategic partnership.

LAA's simplify arrangements for pooled funding streams from central government to local authorities, help join up public services more effectively, thus allowing greater flexibility for local solutions to local circumstances. LAA's are helping to devolve decision making, move away from a 'Whitehall knows best' philosophy and reduce bureaucracy associated with administering multiple funding streams.

LAA's are structured around four blocks (or policy fields):

Children and young people,
Safer and stronger communities, healthier communities
Older people,
Economic development and enterprise.

LAA's form a key part of the Local: Vision, Government's 10-year strategy for Local Government, which seeks a more mature relationship between central and local government. They are also driving forward the principles of the Devolved Decision-Making review in terms of the rationalisation of funding streams.

Neighbourhood Policing

Safer Neighbourhoods is about local policing: police and partners working with you, to identify and tackle issues of concern in your neighbourhood.

Each team is normally made up of six police and Police Community Support Officers (PCSO's). Their aim is to listen and talk to the community and find out what affects local people's daily lives and feelings of security. These might be issues such as anti-social behaviour, graffiti, noisy neighbourhoods, or vandalism. Safer Neighbourhood teams will then work in partnership with the
community and other agencies to find a lasting solution.

Safer Neighbourhoods teams are dedicated to your community and are additional to other policing teams and units in London.

www.met.police.uk/saferneighbourhoods/

Offenders

In July 2004, the Home Office published the National Reducing Re-offending Delivery Plan which aims to reduce re-offending through greater strategic direction and co-ordination across government and other agencies (statutory and non-statutory). The plan focused on adult offenders leaving custody and sought to address concerns raised by the Social Exclusion Unit's report 'Reduce Re-offending by Ex-Prisoners'. It was updated in November 2005.

http://noms.justice.gov.uk/

The London Resettlement Strategy was published in September 2005 and sets out how London agencies will work together to improve resettlement outcomes for London's offenders.

www.gos.gov.uk/

It is in this context that in March 2006 the Youth Justice Board published Youth Resettlement - A Framework for Action. This framework focuses on a number of areas and highlights issues specific to the youth context. The areas covered by the framework are:

Case management and transitions
Accommodation
Education, training and employment
Health
Substance Misuse
Families
Finance, Benefits and Debt
www.yjb.gov.uk/

The London Anti-Social Behaviour Strategy

The London Anti-Social Behaviour Strategy provides a regional framework for action on antisocial behaviour (ASB), building on existing work and developing new actions where necessary.

The Strategy aims to promote effective co-ordinated action against ASB at both local and regional levels and was developed in partnership with the following 11 cross-London agencies with responsibility for tackling ASB:

Housing Corporation
Government Office for London
Greater London Authority
Association of London Government
British Transport Police
City of London Police
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
Metropolitan Police Authority
Metropolitan Police Service
Transport for London
Youth Justice Board.

The strategy partners will focus on the following five key objectives to improve quality of life in London:

Energising and supporting local action by Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and their partners.
Improving co-ordination and co-operation between local agencies and between partnerships.
Supplementing local action with cross-London work where needed.
Ensuring consistency and sustainability in policy responses to ASB across London.
Identifying regional structures for tackling ASB.

The London ASB strategy works to offer more support to local partnerships in responding to ASB and bridges the gap between the national ASB strategy and the local programmes being implemented by London's 33 Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships.

www.london.gov.uk/

The Respect Agenda

The government's respect agenda is a cross-department initiative about every citizen working together to build a society in which communities can live in peace together.

The Respect Action Plan builds on the government's current drive to tackle anti-social behaviour as well as tackling the underlying causes and intervening early where problems occur.

www.respect.gov.uk/