Descripción de los 40 principios inventivos de TRIZ

Partnership Bradford District 2003: 34-35) illustrate that the number o f detected offences

committed by young offenders (aged 17 years and under) in the Bradford district has decreased by 10.9% (between 2000/2001 and 2001/2002). During the same period the number o f young offenders has also fallen by approximately 10%. While these statistics may indicate real falls in youth crime, detection levels also fell during this same period from 18% (2001/2002) to 12%

(2001/2002). Known young male offenders were believed to be responsible for the majority of recorded youth crime (88%) and in 2000/2001, 2% o f young offenders were understood to be responsible for 17% o f youth crime, which in numerical terms linked 37 offenders to 758 offences. The peak age o f known offending was 16-17 years and offenders falling into this age group accounted for almost half (46%) o f all young offenders in 2001/2002.

Young people, especially young males up to the age o f 18 years, were and continue to be particularly vulnerable to offending and the social and economic inequalities that arise as a result. Bradford’s youth crime strategy unsurprisingly displayed similarities to that o f Leeds and sought to confront the offending behaviour o f young people that had already offended, whilst addressing some o f the key factors that Home Office research, in particular, has related to youth offending (Bradford Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership 1999: 18-20). However, although the context o f youth offending was, as Goldson (2002: 685) observed, characterised by multiple expressions o f poverty and inequality, approaches to youth crime conceptually emphasise responsibility and moral agency.

Preventing and reducing young people’s involvement in crime has formed a central thread o f the partnership’s approach and partner agencies have attempted to increase the opportunities available for young people, especially those living in the inner city and outlying estates, to participate in diversionary crime prevention initiatives. Although young people, like other

‘communities’ identified by the partnership, are perceived as ‘part of the solution’ in crime and disorder policies, the conceptual subtext o f New Labour’s approach to youth crime is the exercise o f a shared responsibility by agencies and ‘communities’ (Morris & Gelsthorpe 2000:

24). In addition to the prevention of youth crime and the role of local ‘communities’ in this process, the partnership also targeted a number o f other initiatives towards young people. These were often directed to their educational and health needs, both of which have been correlated with truancy (unauthorised absence), permanent school exclusions, low educational attainment and offending. Clearly, families play an important role in the lives o f children and young people, however, the introduction of ‘parenting orders’ by the Crime and Disorder Act (sections 8-10) means that parents and the traditionally private spaces o f family life (Fionda 1999: 46) have also become the target o f youth crime policies. This approach has been described as offsetting notions of family support by questions o f ‘parental (ir)responsibility and family failure’ (Home Office 1997; Fionda 1999: 46; Pitts 2001: 179; Goldson 2002: 690) that relate

early years experience, in particular ‘poor’ parenting practices and weak parental control, with juvenile offending (Farrington 1996).

This brief analysis o f New Labour’s youth crime policies illustrates the contradictory rationales found within and between current welfarist interpretations o f the ‘deserving and troubled’ young person and the ‘toughening’ and punitive responses directed towards the ‘undeserving and troublesome’ (Morris & Gelsthorpe 2000: 22; Pitts 2001: 175; Goldson 2002: 685). Thus these competing interpretations o f the ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ o f young people ‘at risk’ o f crime will become increasingly evident in the critical assessments of ‘community’, social exclusion and youth involvement in the later chapters of this thesis.

4.5. The Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs): the case-study initiative

Youth Inclusion projects are to be focused on the 50 most at-risk young people [who are] aged [between] 13-16 [years] on the most deprived estates. They will also include work with a wider group of young people in the areas selected. The aim o f the projects is to ensure the most at-risk young people are included in mainstream activities by offering support to help them overcome a variety o f social problems.

(The Youth Justice Board. Source: The Youth Inclusion Programmes:

Your Essential Guide, no date)

The provisions o f the Crime and Disorder Act, in particular the creation o f a national Youth Justice Board, have resulted in the introduction of targeted projects for young people, who are either deemed to be ‘at risk’ o f offending or who are already engaged in (re-)offending behaviour. For the government and the Youth Justice Board, the logic o f targeted approaches to crime lies in the government’s populist politics o f ‘toughness’ (Fairclough 2000: 106; Lister 2001: 430) and in statistics that illustrate that crime is disproportionately concentrated in neighbourhoods with higher than average recorded crime rates. These statistics suggest that 40% of crime occurs in 10% of locations and that two-thirds o f serious young offenders grow up in neighbourhoods experiencing high(er) levels of recorded crime. The Youth Justice Board s Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP) initiative builds on the five pilot Youth Works projects introduced in 1995 in Blackburn, Hackney, Leeds, Plymouth and Sunderland. These were developed by Crime Concern, the Groundwork Foundation and the retailer Marks and Spencer.

In April 2000, the first wave o f YIP projects2 was introduced and resulted in an average reduction in burglaries o f 14% in the target neighbourhoods. This was more than twice that observed in similar ‘high crime’ areas.

2 Eleven ‘wave 1’ Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs) were introduced and were situated in Birmingham Wyrley Birch, Blackburn Mill Hill and Whitebirk, Cardiff, Hackney, Hull, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton, Southwark and Wolverhampton.

The YIPs have become a central component o f the government’s response to preventing offending by children and young people. From its central position in the youth justice system, the Youth Justice Board has overseen the development of the YIP initiative and a number of mandatory processes have structured the project’s life cycle. These phases have included the YOT’s selection of possible YIP neighbourhoods, the development of individual project action plans, the identification and engagement o f the fifty young people in the YIP’s ‘core group’, the delivery o f interventions, project monitoring and evaluation. More specifically the YIPs aim to:

• Reduce crime rates in accordance with national targets by 30% over two years;

• Reduce arrest rates of targeted youths by 60% over the same period; and

• Reduce truancy and school exclusion by one-third.

The Audit Commission’s (1998) influential report, Misspent Youth’98: The Challenge For Youth Justice, observed that by reducing school exclusions and truancy, significant declines in crime could be achieved. As a result, the Youth Justice Board has emphasised the connections between youth offending and non-engagement with education. O ’Shea’s (1999) work has sought to broaden understandings o f the role o f education in young people s lives and has cast their participation in education within a wider framework o f civic engagement and the development o f social capital. It is, however, important to acknowledge that social inequalities can be embedded in social capital thus deepening already significant social divisions.

The YIP structure comprised a number o f key agencies that worked alongside the Youth Justice Board and the local delivery agents. These included the private sector ‘national supporters (Cap Gemini Ernst and Young), the ‘national evaluator’ (Morgan Harris Burrows) and the ‘regional evaluators’. The YIP’s remit was guided by the aims and objectives of those agencies situated at

‘the centre’, in particular, the Youth Justice Board (see Figure 4.1.).

Significantly, this centralised structure contradicts the Youth Justice Board’s suggestion o f a

‘community’ and young person-led approach. The YIP concept recognises that traditional ways o f working with ‘difficult’ young people have been unsuccessful. Young people’s engagement with preventative initiatives has largely been through one o f two approaches - either the compulsory attendance of young offenders required by the statutory criminal justice system or young people’s voluntary engagement with the youth service, where work has been directed towards the social education o f young people. A regional evaluator of the YIP initiative situated the YIPs within New Labour’s ‘third way’ and commented that:

Figure 4.1. ‘The centre’: the management, support and evaluation structure associated with the

Source notes: inform ation derived from the Youth Justice B oard’s Youth Inclusion Program m e Kbase, 2 N ovem ber 2001

The YIP offers a third or middle way where young people are targeted on the basis o f identified need and encouraged to voluntary participation with the aim o f reducing criminality, improving educational attainment and developing social responsibility.

(Eccles 2001: 1)

The YIPs are funded by the Youth Justice Board and received an annual grant of £75,000 (up to March 2002). £6500 o f that amount was ‘top-sliced’ for evaluation, which was in line with the problem-solving, ‘evidence-led’ policies that have become so central in the government’s approach towards youth crime. Each YIP was also required to obtain a further £75,000 in external contributions (cash or kind). The YIPs funding was temporarily extended until March 2003 and the future of the YIPs appeared questionable until October 2003 when a further three- year’s worth o f funding was confirmed (April 2003-March 2006). This uncertainty illustrated that future funding for crime prevention projects is heavily determined by objective results that prove the project’s success, even though as individual YIP staff in Leeds and Bradford have come to recognise, measuring the true impact o f preventative programmes working with young people ‘at risk’ of offending is especially difficult.

Local Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) selected possible YIP neighbourhoods using the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions’ (now part o f the Office o f the Deputy Prime Minister) 1998 Index o f Local Deprivation. A neighbourhood profile was developed that estimated populations o f young people, calculated local rates of crime and recorded measures o f multiple disadvantage. By mid 2001, 70 YIP programmes (see Figure 4.2.) had been established throughout England and Wales o f which four were located in Leeds and Bradford. In each neighbourhood, between 40 and 50 young people, aged between 13 and 16 years, were being targeted as a result of either their involvement in crime or their perceived risks o f offending, truancy, school or wider social exclusion. The location of YIPs in localities already targeted by crime and social exclusion initiatives indicates the prevalence o f multi­

targeting in vulnerable areas. Chapter Eight o f this thesis considers the possible effects o f this on young people and residents living in targeted neighbourhoods.

Approaches to implementing Youth Inclusion assume that many neighbourhood problems, in particular crime and so-called ‘anti-social’ behaviour, are created by young people and that these same ‘problems’ are caused by relatively few individuals, many o f whom are experiencing underlying social and behavioural problems that increase their risks o f crime. Eccles (2001: 1) suggested that the YIPs work on the premise that the management and co-ordination o f young people’s risks is essential if school exclusions, truancy and crime are to be reduced and personal responsibility increased. ‘The fifty’ young people deemed to be most ‘at risk’ are identified by a multi-agency referral process and form the ‘core group’ of young people targeted by the YIP.

Figure 4.2. The location of wave 1 and wave 2 Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs) in England and Wales

Agencies involved in this process include YOTs, the police, social services, education welfare

He/she is accom m odated by voluntary agreem ent with parents (section 20 C hildren’s A ct 1989)

He/she is subject to a care order (section 31 C hildren’s A ct 1989) He/she has been rem anded to local authority accom m odation (section 23(1) Children and Y oung P erson’s Act 1969)

H is/her name is placed on the child protection register Any other referrals have been received by social services

There has been any other social services involvem ent with siblings

Local education authority He/she has been perm anently excluded from school in the past 12 months p e rsisten t juvenile nuisance/anti-social behaviour order

Other He/she has caused a ‘nuisance’ in the YIP area

He/she is known to be offending, but has not com e to the attention o f the youth justice system

He/she is perceived to be involved with a ‘negative peer group’

His/her siblings or other fam ily m em bers are known to be involved in ________________________________ offending________________________________________________________

Source notes: data derived from the Youth Inclusion Programme Kbase 9 A ugust 2000

The Youth Justice Board suggests that the re-assessment of those in the YIPs’ ‘core group’

every six months recognises the dynamic nature of young people s everyday lives. 1 he degree of support provided by the YOTs is important in shaping the development ol the YIPs, especially their ability to access future funding streams. I his is particularly important given the Youth Justice Board’s long-term intention of embedding the YIP initiative into the preventative provision o f the YOTs. Muncie (2002: 142) has explained that New Labour’s discourse of

‘nipping crime in the bud’ and of targeting specific risk factors associated with anticipatory approaches to youth offending not only results in ‘all manner o f misbehaviours, incivilities and disorders’ being drawn into youth crime prevention, but also criminalises the future behaviour of children and young people (Morris & Gelsthorpe 2000: 23).

Funding for young offenders is always contentious. In a particularly damaging article entitled

‘£13m to stem youth crime: Crackdown in 47 hotspots to target hardened thugs who create a

could solve the problems of this lawless blackspot’ (Daily Express 27th July 2000: 26-27). The abundance o f negative images o f young people ‘at risk’ o f offending or involved in crime has influenced approaches to delivering Youth Inclusion, in particular, the degree of transparency afforded to the projects in their targeted localities. Approaches to implementing the YIPs have been shaped by the social and spatial contexts in which the projects are situated, for example, local opinions of ‘youth’ and agencies’ perceptions o f the role o f young people in their

‘communities’. The underlying ideologies of the local delivery agents - NACRO in south Leeds, BARCA in west Leeds and Bradford’s youth service, have also shaped this process.

During the course o f this research, two contrasting approaches to introducing YIPs have been apparent. In Bradford, the YIP has attempted to minimise the stigma attached to the YIP neighbourhoods and, more importantly the young people engaging with the project, by neither labelling itself as a Youth Inclusion Programme nor as a crime prevention project. Therefore, the Bradford YIP has been implemented through existing partnership structures and provision.

Meanwhile, in Leeds, the YIPs have pursued a transparent approach to Youth Inclusion, which has meant that they have had to overcome powerful local negative images of young offenders, many o f which were being fuelled by the media. The local media confirmed the concerns of the YIP managers when it reported:

Three Leeds estates were named today as youth crime hotspots when plans were unveiled to tackle youngsters heading towards becoming hardened criminals.

(Yorkshire Evening Post 27" July 2000: 22)

The projects in both south and west Leeds have adapted the Youth Inclusion badge to create a

‘Youthlnc’ identity for the projects and their participants. In line with the Youth Justice Board’s requirements, the projects have been positively marketed and they have sought to avoid labelling themselves as ‘treats for bad kids’. The focus is therefore on the provision of non­

offending related opportunities for young people ‘at risk’ o f crime. However, as Muncie (1999a.

247) has explained, every care is needed to avoid further excluding and demonising vulnerable young people living in certain places through targeted initiatives, especially crime prevention projects.

YIPs are delivered through the controversial social spheres of the family and school, both ol which are assumed to be situated in the targeted neighbourhoods. The influence o f powerful local identities (for example, those associated with crime, low achievement and unemployment) in each of these settings is regarded by agencies as increasing young people’s vulnerability to offending. Most of the YIPs are accommodated in buildings situated in the YIP neighbourhoods and although this creates an image o f a local venue suitable for young people, it has not been without problems in Leeds. Disputes over the use of space in ‘community facilities have

emerged on several occasions, as has the importance of the exact location o f the YIP premises.

For example, in south Leeds the YIP is located in the City Council’s Middleton skills centre on Middleton Park Avenue, which appears to be a central location in the Middleton estate.

However, despite being central, the venue is noticeably ‘out o f place’ as it is distinctly separate from each of the definable housing areas targeted by the YIP project.

The core objective o f the YIP initiative is the local delivery o f ‘constructive and positive activities’ to young people ‘at risk’ o f offending. However, the Youth Justice Board insists that intervention should be distinguished from generic youth work by offering ‘targeted assistance’

to those young people assessed to be in the ‘core group’. Both o f the Leeds programmes anticipate that by offering young people ‘fun’ activities, they will be able to integrate young people into ‘mainstream’ education, social, leisure and employment provision. In Leeds, the YIPs began their work by involving young people through a multi-method approach that incorporated detached youth work (visiting local youth activities/clubs and meeting young people in the places where they ‘hang out’), the engagement o f key workers from other agencies already involved with young people, informing potential participants and their parents through letters, and the use o f peer group leaders as intermediaries. The YIP projects also work with a wider group o f young people, who live inside of the projects’ boundaries, in particular the peers and siblings of those included in the ‘core group’. Although the YIPs have constructed this approach as ‘inclusive’, authors such as Brown (1998: 75) and Muncie (2002: 146) have argued that this may be construed as drawing in increasing numbers o f non-offenders into crime prevention initiatives.

Youth Inclusion is introduced in an activity-based manner in the form of either one-to-one sessions, structured provision or theme-based group work. The aim is to re-integrate young people into their ‘communities’ and divert them away from crime by providing each young person in the ‘core group’ with up to 10 hours per week of constructive activities. In Leeds, the young people are able to engage in activities that they have requested, for example creative arts, outdoor education and sport. In both o f the Leeds target areas, the YIPs have also attempted to respond to the individual needs of young people by addressing wider personal and social problems such as bullying, peer pressure, racism, behavioural problems and feelings o f social alienation. Young people are provided with opportunities to explore their thoughts, opinions and perceptions, in particular, those related to the harm o f victims and the potential consequences o f persistent offending. Other services offered by Leeds’ YIPs include transitional support for young people returning to school following non-attendance, truancy and school exclusion.

There is no definitive approach to engaging young people. The outcomes o f engagement are

dependent on local circumstances, the young people involved and the experiences of those seeking to engage them.

YIPs are tied to a strict framework o f evaluation. Young people’s involvement with the YIPs is voluntary and some youngsters identified as being ‘at risk have refused to participate in, or have become disengaged from, the project and its activities. In these circumstances, the Youth Justice Board still requires evidence that the YIPs have attempted to involve all of those individuals included in the ‘core group’. More generally, data are collected on individual young people, their attendance and participation in activities, as well as a detailed evaluation by the YIP managers of the perceived success of individual activities. All efforts to engage young people, whether planned or unplanned, formal or informal, successful or unsuccessful are recorded in YIPMIS (the Youth Inclusion Programme’s Management Information System) and each young person involved is entitled to see the information held on them. The Youth Justice Board’s evaluation of preventative initiatives requires evidence that the YIPs have reduced

YIPs are tied to a strict framework o f evaluation. Young people’s involvement with the YIPs is voluntary and some youngsters identified as being ‘at risk have refused to participate in, or have become disengaged from, the project and its activities. In these circumstances, the Youth Justice Board still requires evidence that the YIPs have attempted to involve all of those individuals included in the ‘core group’. More generally, data are collected on individual young people, their attendance and participation in activities, as well as a detailed evaluation by the YIP managers of the perceived success of individual activities. All efforts to engage young people, whether planned or unplanned, formal or informal, successful or unsuccessful are recorded in YIPMIS (the Youth Inclusion Programme’s Management Information System) and each young person involved is entitled to see the information held on them. The Youth Justice Board’s evaluation of preventative initiatives requires evidence that the YIPs have reduced