UK
Prevention and intervention to tackle youth crime
There should be a greater role for police in the prevention and early intervention of tackling youth crime, responses to the Youth Crime Action Plan (YCAP) consultation have suggested.
Overall, responses welcomed the emphasis in the YCAP on prevention and early intervention, but many felt there was a significant role in this for police and this led to a call for government to better manage conflicting police priorities.
The Government response stated that the introduction of the single top-down target to improve public confidence as dealing informally with low-level youth crime to the satisfaction of victims is evidence of work towards clarifying policing priorities. Pointing to the YCAP specification that local packages needed to be agreed by directors of childrens services and chairs of crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs), the Government said police forces are already intervening at an early stage of youth crime prevention.
Current programmes, such as Operation Staysafe, involve police and childrens services working in tandem to reassure the public and take steps to identify and tackle underlying causes of offending behaviour.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said it felt there was a gap in the availability of youth workers who are able (or prepared) to work in targeted areas on the streets or in antisocial behaviour hotspots. Other respondents said that well-funded positive activities and opportunities for young people should be at the heart of the prevention agenda and there was backing for increased Friday and Saturday night activities.
While youth offending services were broadly supportive of the YCAP, several expressed concern about the availability of resources to implement new measures, such as placing youth offender team workers in police custody suites.
A suggestion was made that police officers should be permitted to record informal action as a crime solved, as this would help reduce youth contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) and lessen the inappropriate labelling of children and young people as future offenders.
The Government response to the YCAP consultation was released last week, with 86 responses from third sector organisations, youth offending services, local authorities and regional and national bodies.
Gemma Ilston
2 July 2009
