ICPC Visiting Scholar, John Minkes

con't....

The potential of such projects to reduce crime is not always appreciated even by those involved; a report prepared for the National Crime Prevention agency in Australia noted that

An intensive support and accommodation program which provided homeless young people with life skills and options for education and employment was not seen by the staff involved as crime prevention.

Yet it is clear from research that homeless youths are disproportionately involved in offending, whether for survival or through their involvement in street culture. It should not be forgotten, either, that they are also more likely to be victims of crimes such as theft, assault and sexual exploitation than young people in stable accommodation. The provision of support on the street and ways out of it should surely therefore be seen as a form of crime prevention.

There are, of course, many agencies offering general support to homeless youths, and there have also been some recent initiatives in the criminal justice field. A small number of accommodation projects aimed specifically at homeless young offenders have been established, in Ottawa, for example, by the John Howard Society, and by transitional housing providers in the Australian state of Victoria. Early indications are that such projects are well used but they have not been operating long enough for their long-term impact to be evaluated. In policy terms, Canadian provinces and territories mostly indicated that they were aware of the issue but responses were often dependent on the local knowledge and contacts of youth justice practitioners, and there is a lack of overall strategy and direction.

In England and Wales, youth justice policy is directed centrally by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) which oversees the work of local Youth Offending Teams (YOTs). The YJB requires every YOT to appoint an Accommodation Officer who is responsible for co-ordinating the team’s responses and participating in the formulation of local strategies. In South Wales, this has led to the establishment of a number of small accommodation projects run by voluntary organisations, funded by moneys made available through the extension in 2002 of priority status under homelessness legislation to all 16 and 17 year olds. These projects too are well used; in fact it seems that any such resource is likely to be filled quickly and moving on will always be problematic because there is a chronic shortage of affordable accommodation.

Indeed, homelessness amongst young offenders has to be seen in this broader context. Housing policies in Western countries since the 1980s have led to decreases in the stock of public housing, and the assumption that the private sector would meet the need for affordable rented accommodation has proven false. Changes in employment opportunities and eligibility for welfare benefits, often aimed directly at young people, have further aggravated the situation. Thus while recent developments in YOT practice are encouraging and the small number of projects identified in other countries may enable some young people to reduce their offending by assisting them towards suitable and stable accommodation, the long term prospects depend on wider social and housing policy decisions.

I have written about these issues at greater length in a Thematic Paper about youth homelessness and offending, which will soon be published by the ICPC. I will also be presenting a paper at the British Society of Criminology annual conference at the University of Leeds, UK, and I hope that further work based on my research will be published over the coming year. In addition, I will return to Canada in November to give a paper on ‘A British perspective on Canadian youth justice’ at the American Society of Criminology annual conference in Toronto, where I hope also to renew some of the acquaintances made during my study leave. 

My travel and accommodation expenses for my time as Scholar in Residence were met by grants from the British Academy and the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, which I gratefully acknowledge. But my main debt of gratitude is to the ICPC which provided me with the necessary practicalities of a comfortable office, a desk, a phone and an internet connection for my shiny new University of Wales research laptop. More importantly, they provided me with friendship, advice and moral support, shared their knowledge of Canadian youth justice and suggested useful academic and professional contacts. They found useful literature and internet resources for me and I must particularly thank Chantal Valade whose internet searches added immeasurably to my literature review.

I was also fortunate that my time in Montreal coincided with ICPC’s International Institute which was reported on in earlier editions of the IO. This enabled me to meet crime prevention experts from around the world. In addition, I was asked to contribute a presentation on youth crime prevention which I found very helpful as it required me to think more clearly about youth justice practice as crime prevention and to review shifting policy objectives from this perspective.

So my thanks go to all the staff at ICPC, particularly Margaret Shaw who invited me to spend my study leave with them and Sirpa Utriainen who dealt with all the practical arrangements, and to everyone else who helped to make my stay in Montreal both enjoyable and productive. I hope that I will be able to return before too long. 

John Minkes
Scholar in Residence, International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, September 2004 – January 2005. 

Paper:  Preventing Crime among Homeless Youth