£6m investment in strategy to ‘pull young people away from crime and violence’

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) and Home Office are jointly investing £6 million in an approach known as focused deterrence, which combines communicating the consequences of violence with support to help people move away from crime.

Research from the YEF shows that focused deterrence strategies have been highly effective – on average reducing crime by 33 per cent.

However, most of this evidence is international, which is why the YEF and Home Office are making a multi-million investment to build an evidence base in England.

Five police force areas – covering Coventry, Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester and Wolverhampton – will develop this community-led, partnership approach to preventing violence to find out what works.

Different agencies and community groups – including the police, housing providers, faith leaders and schools – will work with people already involved in violence.

While they will communicate the consequences of continuing to commit crimes, “the approach isn’t about handing out harsh punishment or crackdowns”, said the YEF, a charity with a £200 million endowment to help prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.

“Alongside this, people involved in crime and violence are offered a range of support (from mental health to employment programmes), to help them leave crime behind for good,” it added

According to the YEF’s previous analysis of international evidence, focused deterrence could have a high impact on reducing crime and violence. However, most of the available research was conducted in the US (with one study evaluating the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence in Glasgow).

“This means that we need more evidence to see how it might work in England,” said the YEF.

“That’s why we’re working with the Home Office and four different local partners in five locations.”

These are the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in Coventry and Wolverhampton; Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire VRU in Nottingham; the Violence Reduction Network in Leicester; and Greater Manchester VRU in Manchester.

Different agencies and local leaders in each of these areas will work closely to build partnerships and deliver programmes that work for those involved in violence in their community. Each partnership will also be part of a research study (led by the University of Hull), to see if focused deterrence could cut crime in England.

Jon Yates, executive director at the YEF, said: “From Chicago to Glasgow, focused deterrence has saved lives.

“When we get the police and the community to work together, we can identify and support young people and pull them away from crime and violence.

“This has worked across the world. We now need to get it working in England. Together, we can make sure that every child’s life is free from violence.”

Focused deterrence is an approach to violence reduction that was developed in Boston (US) in the mid-1990s. It recognises that most serious violence is associated with a small group of people who are themselves very likely to be victims of violence, trauma, and extremely challenging circumstances. Their involvement in violence is often driven by exploitation, victimisation and self-protection.

Focused deterrence attempts to identify the people most likely to be involved in violence and supports them to stop.

The age of the people involved depends on the context and the crime problem identified, but projects have worked with children as young as 14 or 15.

It often involves:

• Support – help for people involved in violence to access positive support and social services;
• Community engagement – engaging the wider community to communicate that they want violence to stop and those involved to be safe, provide support, and encourage reintegration in the community. Projects will often arrange engagement between the people who are the focus of the intervention and victims’ family members, reformed former group members, and faith leaders; and
• Deterrence – clear communication of the consequences of violence and swift and certain enforcement if violence occurs.

Amanda Solloway MP, Minister for Safeguarding, said: “Serious violence has a devastating impact on individuals and communities.

“This year, the Government has invested £130 million to address serious violence and homicide, delivering our twin-track approach which combines tough enforcement with early intervention to divert young people away from crime.

“As part of this, we are committed to testing and evaluating what really works to prevent violence. This is why we are providing £3 million to the YEF to test the focused deterrence approach in the UK context.”