Reducing Youth Offences with the Help of Community Intervention

Even though there is a lot more young people (aged 10 to 14) going into custody due to the seriousness or repeat crimes, latest statistic show that 70% plus of offenders are likely to re-offend within the first year of being released. If an issue of the nature isn’t tackled head on it is likely to result in a very destructive and damaging cycle for the youth that can be hard to break. 

Many organisations and charities are calling for more initiatives to be implemented in an effort to lower the youth reoffending rates. A variety of schemes looking at early prevention and helpful intervention are certain to be highly desirable. By involving the many different organizations able to provide expert advise on mentoring programmes, support, working with families, and provided effective mental heath care, it should be possible to take the steps in the right direction to reducing the rate of re-offending.

In an effort to lowering the volume of children that start to enter the court system at a young age, more effective measure need to be implemented to help with punishing and tackling the low level crime and anti-social behaviour without needing to completely criminalise and put the young person in the system.

A fresh approach to help with dealing these issues is likely to come from relying on the private sector, voluntary groups, and charities in order to provide the more effective measures. By relying on the community based, innovative, and unique rehabilitation programmes it is believed that tackling reoffending is achievable in the long-term.

Other ideas include looking for alternative options to custodial sentences or school expulsion to hopefully stop the child entering the undesirable path of crime. A further area to look includes offering improved access to finance and housing support while also giving better access to educational and employment opportunities for the young offender.

Beyond the house, financial, and educational requirement of the young people, a further measure that needs resolving relates to the causes that initially resulted in the difficulties and what action can be taken to make certain the young person is able to get their life fully functional in the wider community.

With the Government hoping to set-up a completely new road-map for the future, it is hoped that the local authorities, health and educational services, youth offending teams, and community safety workers are able to help in the process of creating a more effective approach for coping with youth re-offending.