England and Scotland

Photos here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PzezYb5yrectywU011mihUHQsiyU-nMe?usp=share_link 

Tourism

I had lived in London in my 20s and visited Scotland during that time, so I had friends and family in both countries. I stayed in Soho near Piccadilly Circus, right in the middle of London, and then in the West End of Glasgow near Glasgow University. I had bought a Britrail pass, and I spent a lot of time on the train seeing the gorgeous scenery of York, the Cotswolds and Oban in the West Highlands. There’s something really magical about these places, the beautiful green countryside sitting alongside historical buildings like churches, castles, city walls and even a Roman Amphitheatre.

Overview

My overarching impression of the youth justice system in the United Kingdom is that it is very similar to ours in Australia. The legal, prison, health, education and other systems were familiar enough that I could see more immediate opportunities to trial things I saw that were having positive outcomes, in contrast to the USA where I needed to understand how these systems operated before being able to see how the ideas could work at home.

The number of young people held in young offender institutes in England and Scotland has dramatically reduced in the past 10 years, so I spent a lot of time trying to understand how they had achieved this incredible result. There has also been a huge reduction in the amount of violence being used by young people. It seems there has been a massive shift in the narrative about youth crime during that time, with cultural shifts in policing, politics and the media. I learned about concepts such as moving away from soft vs hard justice to smart justice, child-centred approaches, increased responsibility on social media and partner agencies for youth crime outcomes, a stronger focus on prevention and early intervention, commitment from the highest level to rehabilitation rather than imprisonment, reducing the ‘adultification’ of young people, and a focus on everyone understanding the levels of victimisation and exploitation youth offenders have experienced.

Young people’s involvement in gangs impacts on all aspects of the system here, in the community and in the young offender institutes. The partnership between police and youth justice is strong and I could see many opportunities to strengthen this relationship in Queensland, to tackle the gang issue together. Mentoring, especially from people with lived experience, came through strongly as a theme, as well as local level approaches and targeted programming to deal with the use of violence.

England

Her Majesty’s Prison and Young Offender Institute (HMP/YOI) Feltham - London

Feltham is split into two sides, with 74 young men under 18 on A side, and 312 adult men (18-25) on B side. I visited A side, where many beds and units were now empty due to the decrease in numbers. Feltham is structured and operates in a very similar way to the youth detention centres at home I’m used to, so I’ll just write about some things happening there that I found interesting.

I got to be part of a regular meeting the team has with the police about local gang issues. I was surprised at how much information was shared between the police and young offender security team about young people and their gang involvement – real time information about incidents in the institute and the community, relationships, associations, gang violence, guns fired etc. Plain clothed police officers are part of the team at Feltham and there are no restrictions on information sharing. The group spoke about a struggle familiar to me – do we accommodate members of the same gang together (where they feel safe and will not generally be involved in in-fighting but could group together against staff), or split gang members across different units (where there can be conflict with other young people) – the current thinking is there needs to be separation between higher and lower ranked members of the same gang, so there is more chance of meaningful intervention with members who not yet completely embedded into the gang. Some units operate as two groups, kept separate day and night through scheduling the young people into different locations, because there is conflict between the two groups within the one unit. The staff I met at Feltham couldn’t remember a single young person choosing to leave their gang while they are in custody, “You won’t solve the gang issue in custody. You manage it in custody.”

Feltham has relatively recently professionalised its workforce. Staff don’t need a minimum qualification to apply for the job, but they are enrolled in a youth justice apprenticeship when they start work and are given time and support to work towards this professional qualification. Completion of the qualification results in a higher level of pay. Unfortunately, there were some experienced staff who did not want to complete the qualification and moved onto other work when this was made mandatory. This also lowered the average age of the workforce because younger staff were more likely to want to do continued study. It was good to hear about the positive and negative aspects of this decision and it made me wonder if we could offer something like this on a voluntary basis to youth detention staff in Queensland.

Young people use laptops in their bedrooms at Feltham. They use them to make phone calls, ask for a staff member to see them, request programs, see their schedule, order from the canteen, watch movies, listen to music and podcasts, play games, and see messages and information from the staff at the centre. A young man I met who was showing me around his room and unit said, “Tell the Australian kids to thank me for showing you this when you get them their own laptops”. Staff said the young people never damage the laptops because they’re so important to them, and because young people use them for many of the daily tasks that used to be paper based, staff are freed up for more direct therapeutic work.

I saw very little graffiti and when I asked about it, I was told young people would need to clean it off or “pay for it” if they had done graffiti. I learned there is a money-based system here, with young people earning money by doing jobs or by being ‘caught’ by a staff member doing something good. They can spend their money on phone credit, Xbox games, the canteen or other catalogue items. There is an Xbox in each unit for the young people to share. Young people told me they never fight over it as it is considered a privilege to be able to play it, “Only gold get to play.” There is a bronze/silver/gold level system related to behaviour on centre, with young people earning extra time in the recreation room, the ability to wear their own clothes instead of centre issued clothes, later bedtime and other privileges.

Wipers – Community-based program for young men from cultural minorities who use violence

I met with the Director of Wipers, who told me about an 8-session program that has won an award and shown to be very successful in supporting marginalised young people to reflect and make positive choices for their future. Mentors lead the delivery of this program, ideally people with an understanding or lived experience of the young people’s cultural backgrounds and environments they grew up in.

It was quite an inspiring conversation. I could make linkages between the lives and experience of the young people I work with and the young people in this program. Topics include social identity (“Where are you from? Do you see yourself as English? Do you feel included in English society? What does being English mean?”), fatherhood and relationships (“What if you got a girl pregnant but you don’t really like her? Was your father around when you were young? What was the impact of that?”), gender issues (“What does it mean to be a man? What does being in control look like for you?”) and goal setting (“Where do you want to get to? What support do you need along the way?”).

Partner agencies such as employment services are part of the program, linking the internal work with the external support required for the young men to reach their goals. We talked about how criminal records follow young offenders in England into their adult lives and the barrier this creates with employment. “If we don’t stop criminal records from following these kids, how can we show them role models in the type of jobs that come with the lifestyle they aspire to – I want to show them ex-gang members who are successful accountants and lawyers, not just menial labourers.”

Engage program – early intervention within police watch houses / ‘custody suites’

The London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) funds a number of prevention, early intervention and tertiary programs aimed to reduce youth crime, which are informed by research, evaluation and a Young Person’s Action Group. I was taken to a police custody suite, where young people who have been arrested spend on average 14 hours being interviewed and processed by police, with around 75% being released with no further action taken.

Half of London’s custody suites now have the Engage program, and it will be across Greater London by this summer. The model involves a youth worker and mental health worker working with police to make the most of this “reachable, teachable moment”. They do this by learning about the young person and their family situation and making connections to social, recreational, therapeutic and other support services. The staff of the Engage model said this particular environment (as well as a similar program in Accident and Emergency Departments across London) is well timed because young people have had their mobile phone temporarily removed and there is a good chance they are thinking about the possible consequences of continuing on the path they are currently on.

During this 12–14-hour window, a youth worker/mentor, ideally from the same community, connects with the young person and tries to safeguard the child and their family by identifying the early indicators that they will keep offending and addressing them. Sometimes this is as simple as providing free access to a local football club. Other times is means going to the family home, referring parents to support services, providing ongoing mentoring or taking the young person to an educational program. The other key partner is a mental health practitioner, who provides referrals and support for physical health, mental health, disability or drug and alcohol issues. 

It seems to me that one of the biggest benefits of this model is the gentle way police culture is impacted by this collaborative approach. The police in the custody suite I visited spoke about young offenders as abused and neglected children, kids with trauma and victims of exploitation. Just being there when the youth worker and mental health worker explore the whole child is having a positive impact on the way police see young people who offend.

Islington Integrated Gang Team

The Integrated Gang Team is another example of police and youth justice working collaboratively to respond to gang violence. It contacts many of the elements I am now seeing as common in approaches that work – mentors with lived experience of either gang life or a lifestyle young people can relate to, an individualised assessment of the needs of the individual child, support services to meet those needs and a focus on the family and community that surrounds the child. The team sits within the community-based youth justice service centre.

The Integrated Gang Team cautioned me against using the word gang. They are currently changing their name to remove the word. I was given an example of a team member advocating in court for a young person who had been working with them. The Magistrate was hearing about a job the young person had just started and when he clarified where the worker was from, the mood in the court visibly changed as he asked, “You’re from the gang team?”

As well as individual case management and mentoring, the Integrated Gang Team goes into schools and talks to parents and teachers about topics like knife crime and grooming, empowering these adults with current information about risks, signs and prevention strategies. An example was the mother whose 10-year-old had started hanging out with a 14-year-old, who had given her son gifts like video games and said he expected nothing in return. This doesn’t necessarily mean there is grooming happening, but it was enough to make the mother aware of this relationship and monitor it more closely.

Scotland

Her Majesty’s Prison and Young Offender Institute (HMP/YOI) Polmont – Glasgow

On the day of my visit, Polmont housed two young people aged under 18. One was excited because he was being released that day. I met them playing pool in a huge unit with over 100 empty beds. It’s a dream to think we could achieve this someday. In 2011 there were 137 males under 18 accommodated here. On the day of my visit there were also 205 male prisoners aged 18-25 and about 100 women of all ages at Polmont.

10 years ago, there was a commitment in Scottish Parliament to rehabilitation over imprisonment and a presumption against short-term sentences. There has recently been a commitment that by 2024 no child will be in prison (secure residential settings will still be in use). What’s really interesting to me about the Sottish context is the community is 97 percent white. Violence is concentrated in historically poor areas and there is a hierarchy in society relating to class, while race has been a major factor in the other locations I have visited.

The most successful program running in Polmont is a two-week, full-time program co-delivered by police and prison staff. Young people volunteer for the program for various reasons, e.g. completion certificates are well regarded by courts and parole boards, time on the unit can be boring, they are genuinely ready for change. Topics include consent/sex crime and the internet (“Did you know that if you’ve ever sent a naked photo, you’ve committed a sex crime?”), gang recruitment and grooming, trauma and the adolescent brain, adverse childhood experiences, bullying, sexualisation (including objectification of women and toxic masculinity), knife and violent crime and healthy relationships. By delivering the program together, there is a lot of information given by the police officer about rights, responsibilities and the law. Partner services such as domestic and family violence co-present and young people are provided job skills and employment support. One young man’s wise advice was “Don’t get involved in your friends’ fights. You might lose your street cred but it takes the bigger man to walk away, and if you don’t, you’ll be the one locked up.”

In Queensland’s youth detention centres, we sometimes struggle with a perceived or real divide between “operational” and “professional” staff. I found it interesting in Polmont that almost everyone delivering therapeutic and criminogenic interventions had started their career as a correctional officer. In fact, unless you are a qualified social worker or psychologist, you start your time at Polmont in as an officer in the residential area, then if you have an interest in moving to a Monday-Friday, 9-5 role in programs, induction, reintegration, employment support, conflict management or mentoring, you apply and can transition into these roles. I can see a real benefit of all these positions being filled by staff who have experience in the operations of the centre and day-to-day lives of the young people in custody.

Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, Glasgow

I had a fabulous conversation with the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, a group funded by government that includes police, mentors with lived experience, a communications team and others. I wanted to know how Scotland had managed to reduce violent crime so significantly in the past decade. I was told there has been an intentional challenging of culture across all agencies whose work touches children’s lives – child safety, education, health, youth justice and police, “First you change the culture, then you change the system.” The Violence Reduction Unit created a “coalition of the willing” and started by understanding all the other systems, their touch points and pressures (e.g. education wants to see attainment and attendance, health needs hospital beds, police want to see less violence). All agencies started to be held to account for youth justice outcomes by key performance indicators.

Police made a commitment to focus less on non-violent crime and work with partner agencies to wrap support around those young people who were persistently doing lower-level crimes. These are the young people who are no longer in the young offender institutes, they are being managed in the community. Together the agencies considered how to recognise when a young person is ready to make a different choice. For example, a youth worker notices a young man has a new girlfriend who isn’t involved in crime, or a teacher finds out a young man has a new job and has money coming in through legal means. A “community-based navigator” mentor is linked with the young person and there is a multi-agency response put in place. Involvement is voluntary. Navigators are also involved at the local level in school-based programs and run group activities for young people at night.

The Scottish Violence Reduction Program proactively engages with the media to change the narrative about youth crime. They do not directly combat the messages in place but add context such as the role of social media in allowing the sharing of videos showing criminal acts and threats, or solutions such as more local youth workers for the community. “You can influence how politicians make decisions, but you have to change the media narrative first. Not just by providing the evidence base but by telling the whole story.”

Concepts across the UK

Youth justice and police as close partners

I wanted to explore how youth justice felt about sharing information freely with the police. Does it make young people less likely to trust you, does it reduce genuine engagement, do the police use information given to youth justice staff to arrest young people, are young people who talk to police in young offender institutes seen as ‘snitches’, does the police workplace culture create challenges to therapeutic approaches? I asked these types of questions in all the places there was a police/youth justice partnership, and I was told these questions might have had different answers ten years ago, before a shift towards child-centred, community-based policing.

In the young offender institute at Polmont, the plain clothed police officer who worked there full time had started his career as a “regular” cop, who got into the job to “arrest the bad guys and drive fast cars”. After nearly a decade of this work he realised what he thought of as success (people who broke the law going to jail) was not having any impact on crime, if anything it was making it worse. He moved into community policing and was given authority over a small area, his “beat”, and asked to do what he could to reduce crime. He spent time trying to understand the local area, built relationships in the community, educated people “by stealth” through conversations with community members, connected people to support services, worked with community youth workers and delivered group programs based on local need. He started to see crime on his beat reduce and the impact this work could have.

I was told that young people sharing information with police who work alongside youth justice is always based on a trusted relationship. Trust that they will follow up and prevent something from happening if the young person is in trouble, trust that their conversation will stay confidential unless there is a risk of harm, and trust that their best interests will be taken into account, even if they are arrested as a result of the information being shared. The police officer in the young offender institute in Polmont had arrested three young people since working there for five years but had worked with hundreds of young people.

I was told that non-uniformed community police working in schools, youth justice services and youth detention has another benefit – by police attending multi-disciplinary meetings about the children on a daily basis they are viewing the whole child and all the factors that have led to their criminal behaviour, including domestic and family violence, abuse, neglect, poverty and exploitation from adult criminal networks. This is another way police culture is shifting.

Alternative secure settings

The UK has small, home-like settings for young people whose offending is not as serious, but the court has ordered them to be in a secure setting. These secure children’s homes are run by non-government organisations and monitored by government. They are usually mixed gender, with young people spending time in common areas (living room, kitchen, outdoor spaces) and being locked in their bedrooms at night. Education happens on-site. In every place I’ve been so far, when I tell people we have all the young people in one place (violent and non-violent offenders) they are genuinely shocked and concerned about the welfare of the young people whose offending does not involve violence.

Approach to low level but frequent offending

There is a commitment across the UK not to lock kids up who do not do violent crime. So what is the alternative? Police partnerships are key – community police create local relationships with schools, non-government organisations, businesses, local community members and health services. Police frequently visit the homes of these young people alongside youth justice workers, youth workers, mentors, family therapists and mental health workers. Funding has been redirected from secure settings to the community. Local multi-agency panels discuss these young people at length and find ways to connect them to the services and activities they need. Police have committed to a child-centred approach and take alternative methods to arrest for non-violent crimes.

Final thoughts

And tomorrow, on to Spain, where the CEO of the Diagrama Foundation and I will drive around the country for ten days, visiting multiple locations run by this non-government organisation. I’m excited and trying to learn a few helpful Spanish phrases before I go to sleep…