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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Youth workers in London custody centres stop 90% reoffending, says report
A scheme aiming to turn children arrested for violence away from crime has claimed staggering success, with up to nine out of 10 diverted from further offending, a new report says. Under the scheme, which is funded by London's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), special youth workers are placed in police custody centres across the capital. The VRU claims the overwhelming majority of 10- to 17-year-olds do not reoffend within 12 months of release from custody. Lib Peck, the director of the London VRU, said the £40m-a-year cost of the unit, which runs a range of initiatives, is more than made up for by the money saved from the cost of reoffending. She said prevention works and deserves more money, adding: 'Society and government have focused a lot more on policing and enforcement than they have on prevention.' A report to mark London VRU's first five years of operating says the cost of youth violence in London alone is £1bn a year, including the cost to the police, courts system, health and victim services. VRUs sprung up across the UK amid a growing concern over knife crime. London's unit is the biggest, with the capital also suffering the highest rate of knife crime. The report details what drives violent crime and how a public health approach can help reduce it. The scheme includes support based at hospital emergency departments aimed to stop retaliation from victims of violence, as well as services in police custody suites that have tried to help 800 children. The report says: 'Monitoring data shows that nearly three-quarters of young people in hospital following a stabbing or violent incident reduced their risk of harm after the intervention from a youth worker. 'And last year, data reported by our projects showed that almost 90 percent of teenagers arrested for violent offences did not reoffend over the next 12 months following intervention and help from a youth worker based in the busiest police stations in London.' The scheme is showing signs of being able to exploit the 'teachable moment', long talked about by police and youth workers. It is the point where someone is wavering between continuing as a criminal or turning their back on violence. Michael Gosling, one of the London youth workers based in police custody, said he tries to earn childrens' trust and tells them not to discuss their crimes with him, with most wanting to talk about what led to them being under arrest. 'Going into custody can be quite scary,' he said. 'I try to appeal to them by using body language. I tell them I am there for them, I am not there to judge them. 'We are not wearing the get up of a police officer. I make it clear I am not a police officer.' Austerity led to a retreat from the streets where gangs driving violence took hold. VRUs and the expansion of youth work they involve, represent an attempt to counter attitudes supporting violence. Gosling said of one case: 'He was a product of his environment.' Some youngsters are driven by needing money to eat, others to buy trainers or just getting money exploiting 'the playground of opportunities', Gosling said. 'Older gang members are looking for younger children who are vulnerable, to recruit them,' he added. Gosling said others see violence as a necessary part of their attempt to make money: 'The thought process is here and now. They are out to get it by any means necessary.' The report says low trust in the Metropolitan police damages the fight against crime: 'Trust and confidence in policing have seen sustained declines over recent years – just 46 percent of Londoners believe the police do a good job in their local area. This is 10 percent below where it was 5 years ago.' One young person mentioned reportedly described their reluctance to report a crime to the police, 'saying they weren't sure if they would be treated as a victim or perpetrator. They described feeling 'powerless''. Peck said: 'I don't think you can get away from the fact that it's a very problematic relationship at times. 'We just see the consequences of it.' The VRU also claims success reducing school exclusions, and says children not in education are more likely to become involved in violence. Peck said: 'Whatever the cost to the taxpayer [of the VRU] we are saving the same or saving more.' Since the VRU started in 2019, homicide rates are down in the capital and its murder rate is now lower than Paris, Toronto, Manchester and Berlin, but higher than Rome and the West Midlands. Other crime types are increasing and London's VRU, largely funded by the mayor, is seen as a long term project for a decade or more. Key factors driving violence remain poverty, deprivation and alienation, with drugs a key factor – 56% of homicides between 2012/13 and 2017/18 in London were drug-related, according to the report. There is also an increase in the proportion of 10- to 14-year-olds suspected of violence.
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- The Guardian
Teenagers excluded from school ‘twice as likely' to commit serious violence
Teenagers who are permanently excluded from school are twice as likely to commit serious violence within a year of their expulsion than those who were merely suspended, a large-scale new analysis of police and education records has shown. London's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), set up to tackle the number of teenagers dying as a result of knife crime in the capital, said the new research is the first direct evidence of 'a clear link between children being excluded from school and involvement in violence'. It will lend new weight to calls by youth charities, lawyers and other experts for schools to rein in the soaring numbers of exclusions. Government data released in November last year revealed that there were 4,200 permanent exclusions in the autumn term 2023-24, an increase of more than a third on the same term the year before. The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology by researchers at Hull University and Bristol University, followed more than 20,000 young people who were excluded from secondary school, using their education and police records. They were matched with a second set of 20,000 children chosen because they had the same educational experience, ethnicity and social background, and had been suspended the same number of times but, crucially, were never excluded. The researchers found that within a year the excluded children were more than twice as likely to commit serious violent crime than their peers who were on the same path towards being thrown out but were not excluded. In the excluded group there were 990 serious violence offences and 20 murders or 'near-misses' in the 12 months following the exclusion compared to 500 serious violence offences and fewer than 10 murders in the group which avoided exclusion. Lib Peck, the director of the VRU, said: 'For the first time, this new research provides evidence of what we have long known: there is a clear link between children being excluded from school and involvement in violence.' She added that what struck her most was that the results didn't show young people getting involved in violence some years down the line, 'but in fact almost immediately after having been excluded'. Supporters of firm discipline in education argue that with behaviour problems spiralling since the pandemic, exclusion is an essential tool. Tom Rogers, a history teacher and director of Teachers Talk Radio, said that exclusion was a necessary tool when 'extreme behaviour' threatened teachers as well as pupils. 'There is too much focus on supporting perpetrators rather than victims here,' he said. 'There are 30 children in each class who could be negatively impacted by the instigator of violence, bullying or abuse. These other children need protection.' Peck admitted that some exclusions will always be necessary to keep pupils and teachers safe but said more should be done to support these children to stay in school. Government data shows children on free school meals, black-Caribbean children and those with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are among those significantly more likely to be permanently excluded. Iain Brennan, professor of criminology at Hull, who co-authored the research, said: 'If you are excluded and no longer in well-supervised education, who are you hanging out with during the day? The opportunities for being exploited increase, and how you see yourself is also likely to change.' He added that teachers he spoke to frequently told him that 'the writing was on the wall' long before a child was excluded, with external issues including domestic violence and poverty contributing to worsening behaviour at school. 'If a teacher is managing a class of 30 and has limited resources and time, it's often easier to rely on behaviour policy rather than trying to work out how to include and help that child.' However, he warned that failing to rein in exclusions risked 'letting down the most vulnerable and traumatised children' as well as potentially creating victims of crime and 'heaping pressure on prisons'. Kiran Gill, CEO of The Difference, a charity set up to tackle the social injustice of lost learning, called on the government and schools to 'sit up and take notice' of this new research. She warned that pupil referral units, designed to provide alternative education for children who have been excluded from mainstream school, are having to turn away children across the country because they are already full, and many councils are not meeting the legal requirement to find a place in education for children within six days. 'That means these children are at home, or worse, on the streets,' she said. 'Teachers might think that if they permanently exclude a child they will get more support than they can access in mainstream school, but this research shows that is often not the case.' Gill warned that children were not only more likely to be criminally exploited outside school but also to spend much more time on their phone, where they might be influenced by extreme ideologies. Kate Aubrey-Johnson, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London, who co-founded the School Inclusion Project, a group of 200 lawyers offering pro bono support to children facing exclusion, said: 'These statistics are shocking but sadly come as no surprise. Any criminal lawyer knows this to be a stark reality for children.' She added: 'The vast majority of children are excluded from school for relatively low-level disruptive behaviour that too often arises from unmet needs relating to Send.' She said that excluded children typically become isolated and lose self-esteem, making them an easy target for gangs. 'They lose hope that they have a future worth living for.'
