Gang members to be offered mentoring in return for giving up crime
Young gang members are being offered mentoring in return for giving up crime under Government trials of a US-style approach to reducing violence.
Five police force areas are being given about £1 million of government cash each to pilot a strategy known as “focused deterrence” pioneered on gangs in Boston, Chicago and Cincinnati. It has reduced gun and knife crime by a third.
Convicted gang members and those at risk of being drawn into crime are offered mentoring, mental health support, access to job training, youth activities, education and drug treatment in return for a “no violence, no weapon” pledge.
It is often allied to a warning that if they continue, they face a “certain and swift” crackdown, targeting not just their violence but every aspect of their lives from “minor” drug and driving offences to eviction from rented housing and pursuit for unpaid fines.
A key part of the programme is mentoring where a trusted adult figure, like a youth worker in the community, builds a relationship with them to identify their needs and act as a bridge to support and services.
Coventry, one of the five police force areas trialling the approach, has already seen knife crime in the city fall by half compared with last year although an evaluation of the scheme has yet to be completed. The other five areas are Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester and Wolverhampton.
The £6 million trials have been run by the Home Office and the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), a charity endowed with £200 million by the Home Office to support and evaluate crime-fighting initiatives. It reviewed 24 academic studies that showed focused deterrence strategies reduced crime by 33 per cent on average.
In a new report, YEF highlighted the strategy as a way to reverse record levels of youth violence. Its research revealed a 15 per cent rise in the number of young murder victims to 99 in 2022/23 over the past decade.
It also showed the number of 10 to 17-year-olds admitted to hospital for injuries caused by knives or sharp instruments has risen by 47 per cent since 2013/14.
It warned that public services which could lift children out of crime had got worse with police less likely to solve offences, youth services having lost funding, and more children were either playing truant, in care or suffering from poor mental health.
The surge in youth violence was discussed this month at a roundtable convened at St James’s Palace by the King and attended by Sir Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, Idris Elba, the actor, and Jon Yates, the executive director of YEF.
A group of young people also attended to talk about how they dealt with the impacts of youth violence. King Charles told them: “It seems to me that the great ambition now should be to join up all the dots and bring everybody involved in to find the right solution.”
Elements of the focused deterrence strategy mirror proposals by Labour to tackle knife crime and youth violence. Under its new Young Futures programme, local agencies would be required to identify children at risk of getting into crime and draw up a support package to divert them away.
The party also plans a network of youth hubs in every community staffed by youth workers, mental health support workers and career advisers to prevent children being drawn into crime.
In an attempt to reduce knife crime by half in a decade, Labour proposes that every person caught with a knife should be subject to a mandatory plan to prevent them from reoffending, with penalties including curfews, tagging and custody for the most serious cases.
Mr Yates said: “The figures in our new report provide a sobering reminder that more effective support is needed to stop children being harmed by violence and having their lives tragically cut short by it.