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Are Police-led social crime prevention initiatives effective? A process
and outcome evaluation of a UK youth intervention.
Abstract
Police-led interventions with ‘at risk’ young people, raise a number of debates around policing in
society including the allocation of resources at a time of fiscal austerity, the extent to which the
police should prioritise the safety and wellbeing of young people, and the role that the police
should take in preventing youth crime. This article explores the impact and effectiveness of a
police-led social crime prevention initiative in England. It adopts the QUALIPREV approach by
Rummens et al (2016) on behalf of the European Crime Prevention Network to analyse the data
allowing for a detailed and replicable analysis of core aspects including police engagement, risk
management, offending rates and police-community relations. Drawing on comparisons
between the UK case study and previous studies on police-led social crime prevention projects
in Australia and Canada, the article identifies a number of common challenges for schemes of
this nature including problems with multi agency working, developing a clear project identity,
unequal resources across different locations, and the difficulty in recruiting and retaining
volunteers. However, there were also significant benefits to such schemes, including positive
impacts on offending rates, engagement of at risk young people, and wider benefits to the
communities within which the young people live, including participation, volunteering and
reduction in risks of community harm. A cost-benefit analysis also shows such scheme have the
potential to offer significant savings to the criminal justice system as a whole.
Keywords: Social Crime prevention, Police-led intervention, Working for reward, Youth
offending
Introduction: Police engagement with young
people
Weiler and Waller (1984) argue that persistent and serious criminals often come from socially
disadvantaged backgrounds, and whilst this reflects a particular social reading of the nature of
criminal activity (cf Garland, 2001), Weiler and Waller go on to claim that any attempts to
respond to such actions with more coercive and punitive sanctions are likely to be ineffective
Instead, they contend that greater resources should be directed towards providing stronger,
more accessible targeted social programs that focus on the underlying issues of family, school
and life experiences for children and young people that so often predict future criminal
behaviour (Weiler and Waller, 1984).
Police-led interventions with ‘at risk’ young people are at the centre of a number of debates
around the nature of policing in society. These debates include issues such as the allocation of
resources at a time of fiscal austerity (Barton, 2013), the extent to which the police should
prioritise the safety and wellbeing of young people, and the role that the police should take in
preventing youth crime (Bateman, 2014). Although youth crime in the UK has fallen in recent
times, it is still recognised that young people are more likely to commit offences than adults and
senior citizens (see for example, Loeber and Stallings, 2011). Therefore, the ways that police
interact with young people are a vital component of police-community relationships. For
instance, Hurst and Frank (2000) discuss the extent to which young people are over-
represented in terms of police contacts and arrest; Herlitz and Hough (2016) demonstrate that
suspects under the age of 18 are more likely to receive sanctions from local police officers than
their adult equivalents; and Loader (1996) describes how young people are also more likely to
come into contact with the police in heightened situations of conflict, in part due to their greater
use of shared outdoor space.
Addressing issues of poor police-youth interactions requires a way of thinking about police-led
interventions with young people that emphasises the experience of young people as members
of communities, and also understands the unique social circumstances that they inhabit. Lyons
(2015, p. 101), for example, outlines the role police can play in building an identity that can
‘strengthen young people's ties to the community’. Similarly, Bradford (2012) discusses the role
policing styles can play in encouraging positive views from the community towards those that
police them. He argues that the ‘police are a highly visible representation of the state, a
concrete instantiation of its (often failed claim) to protect and represent all its citizens’ (Bradford,
2012, p. 3). Despite this, Foreman Jr. (2004, p. 3) finds that young people are often excluded
from police interventions at a community level, and argues that young people should be placed
alongside other community members in police community-level interventions as this would
‘increase law enforcement legitimacy in their eyes by increasing their respect for the process of
police decision making’.
This article explores the impact and effectiveness of a modern police-led social crime prevention
initiative that attempts to contend with such issues. There is a rich history of programmes that
seek to divert young people away from the criminal justice system, particularly in countries such
as Canada and Australia (see, for example, Wood et al 2008; Grekul and Sanderson, 2011).
However, evaluations of such programmes are limited. The example explored in this paper is a
police-led scheme that works with what it deems to be ‘at risk’ young people in the United
Kingdom. The data is organised and analysed though a series of key process and outcome
review indicators taken from the QUALIPREV crime prevention evaluation tool, developed by
Rummens et al (2016) on behalf of the European Crime Prevention Network. The process and
outcome criteria used in this evaluation illustrate that, whilst there are some significant concerns
over how such schemes are run, not least the role of ‘Police as youth workers’, there are
potentially significant benefits to both the young people who are supported individually and
encouraged to actively participate and engage with their communities. There are also potential
cost benefits to such approaches which reduce the entrance of young people into the formal
criminal justice system and which contribute time and energy into local communities.
Social Crime Prevention Initiatives
In the UK, Crime Prevention discourses are often a reflection of what Garland (1996, p.454)
terms the ‘Responsibilization Strategy’: an attempt to implement 'social' and 'situational’ forms of
crime prevention as a means of ‘reordering the conduct of everyday life right across the social
field’. Garland, however, notes that the success of implementing a responsibilization agenda
quickly became constrained by issues with setting up effective multi-agency working. Even
when sufficient capacity and willingness does exist questions have been asked about the
validity of such approaches, particularly when they are used to hide deficits in front line policing
and crime control (Crawford, 1994). Despite this, schemes of different varieties are relatively
common. For example, Walker et al (2007) conducted a review of a Youth Inclusion Support
Panel (YISP) scheme, a programme in the United Kingdom run by the Department for
Education and skills which provided young people at risk of offending, and their families, with a
range of support mechanisms designed to divert them from crime (Walker et al, 2007, p. xiv).
Rummens et al (2016) discuss the important distinction between situational and social crime
prevention initiatives, citing the work of Ekblom (2010) and Tilley (2013) in making these
distinctions. Broadly speaking, situational crime prevention initiatives focus on crime as varying
combinations of Rational Choice theory and a “convergence in time and place of the following
three elements: (1) a motivated offender, (2) an accessible target, (3) the absence of a capable
guardian2 (Rummens et al, 2016, p.14). Such approaches focus on the reduction in opportunity
for such crimes and, they argue, run the risk of simply displacing crime or impacting on
population groups more widely. In contrast, Rummens et al (2016, p. 17) describe social crime
prevention initiatives as seeking to ‘influence underlying social conditions and factors which lead
to offending’. Social crime prevention approaches often focus on ‘risk factors’ as the key drivers
of intervention. Such initiatives include structured interventions in the family life, education,
health, work, and the neighbourhood of potential offenders (Grant, 2015). The rationale is that
changing the social and physical conditions that impact on offending in local communities can
have a marked effect on the behaviour of the potential offenders who live there (Tonry and
Farrington, 1995).
The focus on ‘risk factors’ is not without criticism. For example, Kennelly (2011, p. 336) argues
that modern attempts to police youth feature the constant re-circulating of notions of youth as
‘risk’. These attempts to classify risk, she argues, are underpinned by what is essentially a
fundamentally flawed ‘dual-construction of youth’ (2011, p. 342). Young people are not
considered to be fully-formed citizens in the eyes of the law, yet they are considered to be
ultimately responsible for their actions to the police and state. This carries ‘specific implications
for young people's treatment by state apparatuses, such as social service agencies, schools
and police’ (Kennelly (2011, p. 342). The danger therefore is that an over focus on risk
indicators can lead to a preponderance of governmentality that prioritises ‘efficient governance,
control, monitoring and management of at risk populations’ (Case and Haines, 2009, p5), often
to the detriment of other important concerns such as welfare, justice or rehabilitation (See, for
example, Case, 2006; Muncie, 2009; Muncie and Hughes 2002).
Nevertheless, social crime prevention schemes are relatively widespread in the UK, ranging
from small diversionary schemes run by youth services to larger-scale programmes such as the
local authority-led Youth Inclusion Support Panels (YISP). Police-led social crime prevention
initiatives, however, are less common. There are international examples from several countries
with similar cultural and policing contexts as the United Kingdom, including Australia and
Canada. For example, Meyer and Mazerolle (2014) examined a police-led partnership
programme in Brisbane, Australia that adopted a third-party policing approach to managing
young offenders from high-risk families by engaging the families with the police and other
partner agencies. Engaging in a multi-agency approach, the police attempted to coordinate the
application of a number of services simultaneously. However, significant issues were identified
by the authors, particularly the difficulty that the police had in maintaining partnerships between
agencies from different organisational backgrounds. Most commonly, they found the challenges
included ‘(1) a lack of philosophical fit between partner agencies; (2) a lack of clarity around the
project’s aims and objectives; (3) a lack of clarity around each partner's roles and
responsibilities; and (4) a lack of understanding of each other’s capacities and boundaries’
(Meyer and Mazerolle, 2014, p. 246).
A study of the Nexus Policing Project in Victoria, Australia (Wood et al, 2008) explored the
ability of police officers to become ‘change agents’ capable of altering their routines and
practices to incorporate new methods targeted specifically at overcoming long term challenges
around youth community safety. This work was based on the belief that police officers have the
potential to challenge entrenched beliefs that often have a detrimental effect on their work with
young people. They developed a new model of practice which drew on the work of Clifford
Shearing (2001) and placed young people at the centre of a problem-solving process for
identifying and targeting wellbeing issues in a range of youth contexts including home, schools
and the wider community. For Wood et al (2008, p. 79), such a model ‘has the potential to
address a range of social and welfare issues relevant to young people’.
In the Hobbema area of central Alberta, Canada, Grekul and Sanderson (2011) explored an
initiative run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that focused on those at risk of becoming
involved in gang related activities. Started in 2005, the initiative aimed to tackle issues of ‘socio-
economic disadvantage, violence, family dysfunction, and substance abuse’ that are particularly
significant issues in the First Nation communities that live in the area (Grekul and Sanderson,
2011, p. 42-3). The initiative used a number of tools to build social bonds and increase
opportunity, including positive peer relationships, regimented discipline (though military style
parading), and an emphasis on school attendance and educational attainment. A 2015 review of
the project by Public Safety Canada who contributed CAD$2.8 million to its running between
2010-13, identified the project as largely successful, broadly meeting its commitments, and with
a good level of satisfaction from the young people involved (Dunbar, 2015, p. 3).
More recently in Toronto, Canada, police have launched a Youth Pre-Charge Diversion
Programme that aims to ‘identify young people who may be better served by community
programs rather than criminal charges’ (CBC, 2017). The programme combines police and
community agencies to provide alternatives to the criminal justice system when tackling criminal
behaviour. This includes drug and alcohol counselling, community services, Restorative Justice
solutions, volunteering, and paid work opportunities (Cross-Over Youth, 2017). Such
diversionary programmes have become a greater part of the Canadian approach to youth crime.
Developing from the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act, this approach emphasizes a commitment
that ‘communities and families should work in partnership with others to prevent youth crime by
addressing its underlying causes’ (Department of Justice, Canada, 2016). The impact of this
approach has been powerful, and although it is hard to attribute all impact to this policy, the
statistics shown in Figure 1 illustrate a marked decline in young people charged since the
introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Figure 1 here.
A more specific review of Pre-Charge Diversion programmes in Toronto conducted by the City
Government found that they were, broadly, an effective means of reducing offending behaviour
and increasing the resilience of young people (Scott, 2015). The report identified five
characteristics of effective programmes: they should be: ‘1) community-centric, 2) child and
youth-centered, 3) apply a positive approach, 4) have governance structure and integrated
funding, and 5) have a foundation of evidence-based research and evaluation’ (Scott, 2015, p.
50). There were, however, several issues that were identified as barriers in the effectiveness of
schemes. Most notably the need for determining ‘clear, attainable and measurable goals for the
program’ (Scott, 2015, p. 50).
These examples highlight the potential of police-led social crime prevention programmes to offer
a route to working successfully with young people, not just as a means for diverting them from
criminal behaviour, but to also develop personal skills and support productive relationships with
their communities and with the apparatus of the state. This research contributes to the
international examples with a process and outcome evaluation of The Aston Project, a social
crime prevention scheme in Gloucestershire, England. The Aston project works with young
people between the ages of 9 and 17 who have displayed risk factors that might eventually lead
to them becoming involved in nuisance or criminal behaviour.
Police agencies in England have recently suffered from an austerity driven reduction of
services, which has had a significant impact on services provided by the state such as housing
and social support, community projects, and local policing. The resulting residualisation of
support has left marginalised groups vulnerable, with young people often at particular risk
(Lynch et al., 2016). A report commissioned by the local Gloucestershire Constabulary in
concert with the County’s Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) indicated a
range of concerns with respect to police engagement with young people (Restorative
Engagement Forum, 2015). The OPCC Gloucestershire made the relationship between young
people and the police a strategic priority within the Gloucestershire Police and Crime Plan, in
particular ‘examining how young people view the police and how they are policed, to try to
improve relationships’ (OPCC, 2016). The Aston Project is one mechanism through which
Gloucestershire Police have been working with ‘at risk’ young people, and this process and
outcome evaluation summarises the key considerations and benefits of such police-led social
crime reduction initiatives
Method
This article presents a process and outcome evaluation of the Aston Project. This approach was
adopted to offer a more comprehensive analysis of the value of such a project, with the Process
evaluation indicating how well the intervention was working , and the outcome evaluation
appraising impact and sustainability. The criteria for this evaluation are derived from key
indictors identified in the QUALIPREV process, which was developed by Rummens et al (2016,
p5) on behalf of the European Crime Prevention Network as a tool for examining crime
reduction initiatives. The QUALIPREV approach identifies a series of key indicators for
evaluating the ‘implementation, efficiency and effectiveness of a crime prevention programme’
(2016, p5), scoring an initiative against each to provide an overall assessment of its impact. This
work does not adopt the full QUALIPREV approach that assigns a score to the different
indicators; it uses the evaluation framework of key indicators that are the foundation of
QUALIPREV. These key indicators are designed “to be flexible, by allowing the weights to be
adjusted depending on the priorities set by the user of the tool” (2016, p53). Accordingly, for
both the process and outcome elements of evaluation in this paper, we combine these
indicators under master categories where applicable and all four researchers developed a
consensus of the evaluation. Use of QUALIPREV key indicators affords this analysis a rigorous
structure that is “determined by the relevant scientific literature and by a survey of practitioners
in Europe” (Rummens et al, 2016, p53). Table 1, indicates the QUALIPREV key indicators used
in this analysis, providing some description in each case.
Table 1 here
The data for this analysis comes from an evaluation of the Aston Project that was funded by the
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) for Gloucestershire, and undertaken by
the authors in 2016. This paper is an interpretive commentary rather than a straightforward
summary of research findings. The original research report is also available (see: Hobson,
Lynch, Payne, Ellis, and Hyde, 2017). In collecting the data, the research team engaged in
discussion, observation and interviews with all principal stakeholders associated with the
initiative. This included interviews with the senior police responsible for the project; the
operational police management team; police officers who have managed the project in the past;
the Police & Community Support Officers (PCSOs) working on the project; one retired PCSO
who was involved in the project; and members of the steering group comprising individuals from
the local and wider community. Table 2 details the interviews completed, in total, just under
eight hours of interview material was collected across thirteen formal sessions).
Table 2 here
In addition to the interviews, the research team conducted two focus groups with young people
participating in the project from the Cheltenham and Gloucestershire scheme, with seven young
people between the ages of eight and ten years participating. Consent was obtained by the
Aston Project team, who accompanied the young people to the focus groups. The focus groups
were semi-structured conversations that allowed the young people to express their views on a
number of aspects of the project. The topics directed the conversation around the young
people's perspectives on the Aston Project; what they get out of their participation in the project
and how it might have impacted on their behaviour; what activities, groups or organisations they
are involved in through the Aston Project; and if they would recommend participation in the
Project to their friends.
Finally, the research team were given access to activity sessions and to Aston Project
documentation, including previous internal reviews. Observations were made of activity
sessions run by the project in different locations across Gloucestershire. The observations,
although not featuring heavily in the final analysis, did provide some important context on the
workings of the project.
What follows is the process and outcome evaluation of the Aston Project. Each portion beings
with a brief introduction on its content in relation to the QUALIPREV process, and then outlines
the findings and analysis under relevant subheadings.
Part 1: Process evaluation
Process evaluations indicate how well a programme or intervention has worked, or is working.
For the QUALIPREV tool, Rummens et al (2016, p21) produce a series of process indicators
common to many such evaluations, which they suggest provide a useful structure for such
analysis. These are: the implementation of the preventative measure; fidelity of the measure
(under which they group the implementation, accessibility, and feasibility of the project);
Participation and Retention rate; and External confounding factors. The following process
evaluation uses these headings combining for association where suitable, as the QUALIPREV
approach allows.
Implementation
Considerations of implementation involve what Rummens et al (2016, p. 21) describe as costs
in ‘a more absolute sense, i.e. whether the cost in money, resources or people is reasonable
given the constraints or scope of the project’. Key to understanding this is the team involved
with the delivery of Aston, and the aims and scope of the project. The Aston Project is funded
primarily by Gloucestershire constabulary, who provide the paid staff for the management and
day-to-day running. At the time of review, this included a police management team that
incorporated:
● A senior strategic lead officer with a portfolio for a range of projects including force
licensing department for liquor licensing, more traditional crime prevention, integrated
offender management, restorative justice and youth offending.
● A strategic lead for a range of projects around youth and gang crime.
● A police sergeant on a 0.8fte contract (working solely on the Aston Project)
● 4 Police Community Support Officers (working solely on the Aston Project)
At the time of review, the project was delivered across three locations in Gloucestershire:
Gloucester, Cheltenham, and Newent. It has since expanded into a fourth area, Tewkesbury.
The aim of the project is to provide a diverse range of support mechanisms and positive role
models for the young people in Gloucestershire. Table 3 details the project’s mission statement,
aims and objectives.
Table 3 here
The Aston Project shares a close association with a sister project, ‘Great Expectations’. The two
projects share the mission statement, aims and objective shown in Table 1, yet where the Aston
Project focuses on young people who have been identified as at risk of involvement with the
criminal justice system, ‘Great Expectations’ focuses on young people that have some
offending history.
The two projects are distinguished by a tiered system of engagement, with young people
moving between the projects as suitable. Table 4 shows this relationship between the two
projects, with Tier 1 representing the Aston Project.
Table 4 here
There are several reasons for how this association has come about, including the sharing of
facilities between projects and the process of project-accumulation and project-creep. There
was some suggestion from interviewees that this conflation was causing confusion between the
two projects:
[There is] a mission statement, a few aims and then more objectives. They link to
the Aston Project and what was the Avenger Task Force, [what] is now called Great
Expectations. [Police Manager 2]
Great Expectations which [...] in its own right, it has merit. I do think it’s got merit
but, actually, it doesn’t fit the philosophy of Aston. It’s not what Aston’s about.
[Police Manager 1]
One the key distinguishing features of the Aston Project as opposed to Great Expectations is
the nature of the activities in which young people engage. Aston activities vary between the
geographical locations, but are all focused on engaging the young people in sports, hobbies or
positive-engagement tasks with the PCSOs, volunteers, and existing activity networks from the
local community, often run by other youth organisations. For instance:
We’re not a crèche for the younger kids. We’ve got to be threat, risk and harm
based. We’ve got to be engaging with the right kids, always asking ‘are we
engaging with people who have either caused harm to our communities or are at
danger of doing’. [Police Manager 2]
[the Aston Project] was set-up to work with youngsters that are, sort of, showing that
they’re starting to get tendencies to make the wrong choices and that may be going
towards low level crime … So the idea was to divert them from anti-social
behaviour. [Police Manager 3]
In the delivery of activities, the Project has increasingly attempted to make greater use of its
own community volunteers, as PCSO ‘to share their knowledge and experience (PCSOs 4&5).
Since volunteering was introduced in 2015, 34 volunteers have registered and over 500 hours of
volunteer time has been contributed to the project. There are currently 23 ‘active’ volunteers
who typically contribute between 1.5 and 3 hours per week supporting activities such as football,
coding, or Lego clubs. Despite this, the volunteering system is not always well integrated. One
constraint on effective working practices was a reluctance to integrate volunteers into the key
working practices of the project. For example, one officer described how volunteer participation
is often viewed as additional support to activities led by the police:
I haven’t had any [volunteers] come out with me. We just put it on the website to
say what activities and trips that we’re going on, and it’s up to them whether they
choose to come with us or whether they don’t. [Police Manager 3]
Concerns were expressed by the police and PCSOs that once a particular initiative or activity
became volunteer-driven young people on the Project might find the scheme becomes less
relevant to them. There were also concerns that volunteers can be unreliable, which meant
there was a reluctance to expand their use in some cases:
The kids need some continuity … If it hits the fan in the middle of the week, one of
us is always on duty and we can go and deal with that. If you have a volunteer, they
may only do two hours a month, what happens to those kids? … How can those kids
build up a bond? [PCSO 3]
These issues resonate with experiences of using volunteers in police-led schemes elsewhere.
For example, Dhami and Joy (2007) document how professionals such as police can be
sceptical about the competence and reliability of volunteers, and may find it difficult to relinquish
control of key aspects of a project to community representatives and other non-professional
parties. Wood & Shearing (2007) describe how implementing an effective shared model of
practice can require a fundamental shift in power relations between police and local
communities, and in particular an acknowledgement of local ‘expertise’ and ‘problem-solving
skills’. This is compounded, in the UK at least, by austerity driven pressure on government-
funded projects to slim down their operations and explore ways to cede functions to willing
participants in an effort to cut costs and show value for money.
Accessibility, participation, and retention
Rummens et al (2016, p21) group accessibility with fidelity, however in this analysis it is
included alongside participation and retention as in this instance they are largely interconnected.
For instance, in the Aston Project a young person’s eligibility to participate is based on a
framework of risk factors:
• Aged 9 to 17
• Is a young carer
• Is showing signs of engaging in anti-social or criminal behaviour, which may cause harm
to a community
• Is the victim of anti-social or criminal behaviour
• Has an older sibling who is involved in criminality
• Is demonstrating an interest in fire
• Is in a family circumstance presenting challenges for the child, such as substance
abuse, adult mental health, domestic violence, family conflict, bereavement, and/or
sibling criminality
• There are child protection issues
• There are behavioural and/or attendance issues at school
• Is the victim or perpetrator of bullying
• Has a history of going missing from home
• Is vulnerable to gang related activity
• Aged 16 or 17 and Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET)
• A strategic partner organisation makes a referral
As identified in the earlier analysis, the use of a risks framework to guide intervention for young
people is controversial as it can lead to approaches that may ignore other key concerns such as
welfare, justice and rehabilitation (Case and Haines, 2009; Case, 2006; Muncie, 2009; Muncie
and Hughes, 2002). However, the risk factors utilised in this instance incorporate a range of
dispersed social factors underpinned by flexible responses, which the project workers believe
ensure takes the best interests of participants into consideration.
Referrals to the Project mostly arrive from schools and social services in the county, however
some referrals come from family members or through friends or family involved, some through
the Project’s online referral process, and some self-refer. However, as one interviewee
described:
I find that it’s a lot of word of mouth at the moment, where family members are
encouraging others to apply. [Police Manager 3]
The use of a dispersed and flexible participation criteria, and a broad referral process have
some implications for participation. UK national data on young people at risk of criminal or
antisocial behaviour suggest that there is a need for greater accessibility for those with
disabilities, mental health issues or other hard-to-reach groups (YJB/MoJ, 2017). There is
therefore a need for greater clarity in the target groups for the Project. A reliance on word-of-
mouth and a lack of strategic programmes for entry can lead to some groups becoming
inadvertently excluded. Such exclusion was identified by interviewees:
I think probably, disability would be Aston’s biggest challenge ... we don’t exclude
the youngsters ourselves, but very few come forward. And I don’t know if that’s
because we’re not set up, we haven’t the links ... or the know-how, to look after
someone who had a disability and needed a little bit more care. [PCSO 3]
In terms of retention and evaluation of progress, the Aston Project records a qualitative narrative
for each of the young people who participate. These logs comprise a description of interaction
with the Project and contact with project staff:
Every so many months a set of children are reviewed. Each officer has their own list
of kids, they know what’s going on. If there’s anything that they’re aware of,
problems that they’re experiencing, they’re addressed immediately. Nothing now
slips by. One child isn’t left for three or four months with no contact. [PCSO 1]
This form of assessment is useful in documenting effectiveness and can create ‘rich’ examples
of individual cases. However, it is time consuming, case-specific, and can be subjective and at
risk of being anecdotal. They also do not offer a wider indication of the success of the Project.
There is an awareness of the need to find other ways to measure outcomes.
From our observations during the research it was evident that the project was not using a
defined or consistent approach to youth work and engagement. Clarity on the nature and type
of programmes deployed, the approach to youth work, and the expectations on staff are
important for providing structure and distinctiveness. One of the criticisms that can be levelled at
police-led social crime prevention programmes, and discussed below further, is that they often
employ people in prominent roles who are not trained to a necessary standard in youth work
approaches.
Fidelity
For Rummens et al (2016, p. 21), project fidelity is a measure of ‘whether or not the crime
prevention intervention was implemented as it was originally designed’. In the case of the Aston
Project, there were some significant concerns expressed by over the ways in which the project
had developed. It was clear that, whilst the Aston Project retained a core set of principles across
the three locations in Gloucestershire, each location takes a different approach to managing
young people and the activities in which they engage. This has led to some criticism of the
scheme as suffering from a lack of identity:
It feels like a very place based model. [Stakeholder 2]
I can certainly see a difference between Cheltenham, Gloucester and Newent.
[Police Manager 3]
Some of the variations reflect local contexts and needs, and others are organisational and
approach-based. For instance, in Cheltenham, the Project is predominantly a police-led
initiative, in Newent where the establishment of the project is more recent, there was a much
stronger community-driven element, while in Gloucester there were links with services provided
by other agencies. There was some concern around the ability of stretched resources to deliver
the same level of service, although differences in service provision are not necessarily
problematic.
… what works as a delivery model in Cheltenham might not be the model that works
for a delivery in Gloucester ... I think it’s acceptable for the delivery model to be
different in different places. [Stakeholder 2]
There was also concern amongst respondents that provision could become ‘personality driven’
suggesting that there needs to be a reflection on the core mission and the drivers for differences
in service delivery. Tensions around identity and leadership extended to the governance of the
Project, where there were at times disagreement over operational issues and job functions. For
instance, there were concerns expressed by members of the stakeholder group about continuity
in delivery:
There has been a constant stream of Sergeants and Chief Inspectors looking after
the project. No continuity. [Stakeholder 3]
One area in which these were commonly expressed was in the relationship between the Aston
Project and Great Expectations, which targets young offenders:
So is a parent gonna say, “Well, I’d like my son or daughter to be enrolled in Aston”
when, actually, labelled them along with Great Expectations, so they must’ve been
involved in crime. [Police Manager 1]
A consequence of the division in practices between delivery areas is a fragmentation of identity
within the Project. For some, the focus was on the Project’s role as a supportive body,
promoting positive behaviours for individuals at risk of antisocial or criminal behaviour. For
others, the Project was a preventative body that was engaged in a more diversionary approach
with a wider social remit.
A lack of clarity over the core purpose of the project was compounded by the association with
Great Expectations, as identified under ‘Implementation’ section of the Process Evaluation.
This confusion seems to be a common issue with police-led social crime prevention projects.
For instance, the review of the police-led social crime prevention projects by the Toronto City
Government found that programmes suffered from a lack of ‘clear, attainable and measurable
goals ’ (Scott, 2015, p. 50). Similarly, Meyer and Mazerolle’s (2014: 246) analysis of a police-led
partnership programme in Brisbane, Australia, identified ‘a lack of clarity around the project’s
aims and objectives’.
External Confounding factors
Police-led interventions such as the Aston Project are often subject to wider issues of police
funding and decisions on resource allocation. These issues are particularly pertinent in the
context of Austerity politics, where restrictions on public sector funding has led police leaders to
claim that they cannot longer maintain a full range of frontline policing despite having to contend
with issues of rising crime and community tension (Innes, 2010). Such constraints play a
significant role when it comes to decision making on community engagement and crime
prevention work.
Fostering effective multi-agency working is an important component of providing young people
with positive and community focused activities. In a UK context of austerity, where cost is a
significant issue for police-led projects, it is important that the police embrace partners that can
help to deliver an effective service. The schemes in Canada and New Zealand outlined earlier in
this paper have managed this by incorporating elements of a restorative approach, for instance
emphasising the importance of responsibilisation of the individual and the role of a strong local
community in creating positive futures. Restorative justice approaches are increasingly popular
as a solution to keeping people, particularly young people, out of the criminal justice system.
This is reflected in the Gloucestershire context, where a police-led but community-focused
steering group promotes restorative solutions across both statutory and social agencies (Payne,
Hobson and Lynch, 2016).
Furthermore, there are concerns around what constitutes a suitable role for the Police, with
some such as Muncie (2009), arguing that police officers are not youth workers. Similarly, Zhao
and Lovrich (2002) used Rokeach’s theory of human values to determine the extent to which the
values and ideological perspectives of police officers differed from the citizens they policed in a
medium sized city in the US, finding widespread differences in value orientations and ideology.
Drawing on the work of Sadd and Grinc (1994), Zhao and Lovrich (2002, P 226) suggested that
it was likely that innovative community policing initiatives would likely struggle to overcome
operational resistance to change, ‘particularly when police officers are asked to work with local
residents and to promote social equality’. Such divergences lead to wider questions around the
efficacy of police attempts to run community-orientated initiatives.
Outcome evaluation:
Where a process evaluation identifies how well an intervention works, an outcome evaluation
appraises impact and sustainability. This, Rummens et al (2016, p 22-23) argue, is particularly
important in social prevention interventions which have ‘an explicit aim to impact long-term
structural economic and social factors’. As table 1 indicates, the QUALIPREV system,
identifies a series of prevention indicators as a framework for such an analysis. For schemes
based on social interventions, these include: self-reported offending rates; changes in attitudes
towards offending behaviour; increased social skills; and often an indication of cost-
effectiveness in a cost-benefit analysis. As with the process evaluation, we group these where
appropriate.
(Re)offending rates
Measuring the effect of a police-led social intervention such as the Aston Project is difficult as a
lack of baseline data and problems with transposing police recorded crime figures to specific
areas makes estimating impact of preventative measures problematic (See for example Homel
et al, 1999). These difficulties are acknowledged in a QUALIPREV approach to social crime
reduction initiatives, which accepts that analysis must rely on ‘self-reported’ data (Rummens et
al, 2016, p. 23-4). in the Aston Project, this difficulty was compounded by the association with
the Great Expectations project, which was acknowledged by Aston staff:
‘it’s one of those things that’s really, really hard to actually prove’ [PCSOs 4&5]
It is clear, however that the Aston Project has a relatively good reach within the country, as
illustrated in Table 5.
Table 5 here
In terms of offending rates for young people participating in the Aston Project, the figures were
often conflated with the companion-project, Great Expectations, which deals with young people
that already have offending histories. However, between the two projects 5.8% of active
participants committed a recorded offence for the year to February 2016. In real terms, that is 4
young people. In the 2015 figures for England and Wales, the closest available time frame for
which national data is available, within the 10-17 year old population there were 20,544 first time
entrants into the Criminal Justice system, which represents 0.4% of that age group (Ministry of
Justice, 2016, p 7; ONS, 2017). The Aston Project works with what it classes as at-risk young
people, that is young people they consider at a higher risk of offending behaviour. Although it is
hard to assess the impact of the intervention based on the figures available, and the conflation
with the Great Expectations, we suggest it is reasonable to assume that the offending figures for
those engaged in the project represent success.
Changes in attitude and development of social skills
As well as reductions in (re)offending behaviour, the QUALIPREV process also acknowledges
that social crime prevention schemes may also judge benefits in changes in attitudes as these
are often ‘an indicator of whether or not the targeted offending behaviour is less of a viable
action alternative post intervention’ (Rummens et al, 2016, p. 23). During the focus group
sessions with young people participating in the Aston Project, it was clear that they were aware
of the link between their behaviour or circumstances and their invitation to join the Project.
When asked what they gain from their participation, feedback was almost always positive and
they described how the Project improved their lives and allowed them to engage with the local
community. Examples of their responses to this question are presented in Table 6.
Table 6 here
The responses suggest that the young people came to depend on their weekly visits to the
Project, and several attributed positive changes to their behaviour to the support they receive:
Yeah that was me, I used to put windows through, and then they showed me the
good things you can get out of the community. [Focus Group participant]
One measure of outcome for the Aston Project is the value of volunteering and community-
focused activity generated by the project. Each participant banks hours of engagement, which
includes work in or with local communities as well as participation in clubs or events. Although
this is a wide classification boundary, it does indicate the level of participation in activities that
offer the opportunity for reinforcing positive behaviours. Table 7 shows the number of hours
credited in the time-bank across 2016
Table 7 here
Volunteering and community participation often form part of social prevention initiatives as they
help young people develop interpersonal skills and can foster a sense of greater community
membership and ownership. Rummens et al (2016, p 23) describe this as increasing ‘the
normative barrier against offending’. This is hard to quantify, however the Aston Project uses a
time-banking mechanism that operates on the ‘working for reward model’. Participants engaging
in a range of activities, earn credits that they can exchange for extra trips and fun activities. This
approach aims to foster an interest that is socially positive and a diversion from crime.
Although largely successful, there were some issues with the working for reward model. A lack
of distinction between an activity for ‘credit’ and an activity for ‘reward’ meant there was, at
times, a disconnect between the concept and the practice. Such misgivings reflect wider views
in the literature that the rewards for ‘good behaviour’ model could be counterproductive. For
example, Kohn (1993) discusses the idea of being ‘Punished by Rewards’. He drew on a
critique of Skinnerian behaviourism to argue that influencing human behaviour through the
offering of incentives and rewards was at best inefficient and at worst counterproductive. He
argued that those rewarded could quickly come to see the rewards as a form of cynical social
control where rewards are being used to maintain the status quo by controlling those whose
actions or lack of obedience could constitute a threat. The provision of rewards can be viewed
as exercising of power used to benefit the interests of those in power despite typically justified
as being in the interests of those that are in receipt of them. Kohn (1993), therefore, argues that
the success of such schemes has less to do with how well it is deployed, and more to do with
the inadequacy of the psychological assumptions that ground all such approaches.
Cost-benefit/Cost-effectiveness analysis
Putting an economic valuation on a crime reduction intervention is difficult, doubly so with social
crime prevention initiatives that develop community-based interventions and seek to avoid
future criminal behaviour. To achieve this, the QUALIPREV approach considers both the ‘cost-
benefit’ of outcomes versus spend, and the ‘cost-effectiveness’ of ascribing a monetary value to
each outcome (Rummens et al, 2016, p. 35). This broader approach makes it possible to
provide an assessment of value for each element or activity. For the Aston Project, this is a
consideration of the input in terms of money, time and resources, versus a calculation of saving
in (re)offending and the wider community value from volunteering. These are calculations based
on best available data and provides a broad characterisation of value that should be considered
alongside the other dimensions of this outcome evaluation.
As the lead agency, Gloucestershire Constabulary provide the staffing for the operation of the
project. Table 8 uses funding data from the public domain to present the financial estimates of
the commitment for the year 2015-16 based on the staffing from the constabulary and the
commitment from the OPCC for Gloucestershire, as detailed in the ‘Implementation’ section of
the Process Evaluation. It does not account for the senior tactical management costs, which are
shared across a number of different projects. The UK Home Office (2014) provides the full
hourly cost of using a police officer, which includes ‘not just the wage per hour actually worked
but includes expenses, tax payable, pensions, premises, transport, training and other costs.’ In
order to achieve comparability, these figures have been multiplied by the 40 hours of a normal
full-time week and then by 52 to bring the estimate up to an annualised figure. For the purposes
of this exercise, the assumption is that these costs have remained stable, and the estimates are
at the bottom of the relative pay scales. In this sense, it represents lower-order cost estimate.
Table 8 here
Table 9 illustrates the level of engagement and offending of young people with the Aston Project
for Tiers 1 and 2 of the project. Estimates for data are based on the available data from the
National Audit Office (2011) and from data provided by the Aston Project, which we recognise
as incomplete but which does offer a useful insight into the value of Aston interventions.
Calculations of savings are based on all young people involved in the schemes that have not re-
offended, and whilst we recognise that it is very hard to estimate future offending rates, in this
instance we are taking the Aston Project at a value of their target demographic of young people
at risk of offending. This makes the following a best-case scenario saving.
Table 9 here
Table 10 shows the estimated value of the volunteer hours contributed as part of the Aston
Project. The Aston Project provided information on the commitments of the participants and the
adult volunteers, to which we attached figures from the ONS (2016) Annual Survey of Hours
and Earning tables, as recommended by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.
These tables provide a mean 16-17 year old earnings rate and a mean adult rate. For the
purposes of this exercise we have assumed that there is an externality benefit that can be
accounted for if the banked hours are counted as a contribution to the project. The adult
volunteer rate is a mean, though the level at which the volunteers work is almost certainly higher
than the £13.65 estimate, as these include sports coaching, youth club organisers, as well as
the stakeholder/steering group members.
Table 10 here
The combined cost-benefit analysis taking the data from Tables 8, 9, and 10 is presented in
Table 11. It should be noted that this is a best-case scenario that is based solely on data that is
either publicly available or provided as part of the research on the Project and financial, or data
that can be easily converted. It does not take account of the wider community benefits of
engagement of the participants and of the adult volunteers; the long term impact of reducing
offending amongst children that have been identified as at risk of offending; and the social
benefits of engaging the participants with positive adult role models in the professional and
volunteer staff they encounter through the project, reducing the risk of community harm and
contributing to their preparation for gainful employment. These things are hard to give a financial
value to but undoubtedly contribute to creating safer communities and helping young people to
live productive lives without coming into contact with the criminal justice system.
Table 11 here
Summary
Although social crime reduction initiatives are relatively common, police-led initiatives of this
type are less common. The process and outcome evaluations in this paper illustrate some of the
benefits and drawbacks of such an approach. The key findings from each part of the analysis
are represented in Tables 12 and 13, which are structured according to the suggestions in the
QUALIPREV system of analysis (Rummens et al, 2016). These tables also serve as a guide for
considerations when it comes to examining other such police-led social crime reduction
initiatives.
The process evaluation identified a number of limiting factors for such police-led initiatives, and
although in this instance they were specific to the Aston Project, they are issues that have
arisen in the other cases.
Table 12 here
Many of the issues outlined in Table 12 are not unique to this instance. The social crime
reduction initiatives in Australia and Canada discussed earlier in this article (see: Mazerolle,
2014; Dunbar, 2015) also identified issues such as a lack of clarity on the aims and objectives of
police-led schemes; difficulties with multi-agency relationships; problems with recruiting and
retaining volunteers; and when using a dispersed model, differences between a project's areas
of operation. Crawford and Evans (2016: 814) recognise many of the same issues:
The main barriers to successful partnerships include a reluctance of some agencies to
participate (especially health, education and social services); the dominance of a policing
agenda; unwillingness to share information; conflicting interests, priorities and cultural
assumptions on the part of different agencies; local political differences; lack of
interorganisational trust; desire to protect budgets; lack of capacity and expertise; and over
reliance on informal contacts and networks which lapsed if key individuals moved on.
However, it is important to consider that the benefits of police-led social crime reduction
schemes extend beyond the financial considerations and short-term approaches to crime
control. There are many longer-term positives to be taken from improved police-community
relationships, and from the life-long benefits of helping young people to stay out of the criminal
justice system. Some of these benefits are clearly visible in the outcomes evaluation,
summarised in Table 13.
Table 13 here
This review of a police-led social crime reduction initiative raises some interesting questions
around the use of such schemes. There are clearly difficulties in running activities of this nature,
particularly around the role that police officers, regular or support, take as youth workers.
Associated with this are issues of identity for such projects, and how to establish and maintain a
core message. Furthermore, pressures on police budgets threaten non-core tasks and activities,
which is certainly the case in the UK context and also for many other countries. Nevertheless, it
is clear that there are benefits to such schemes, not least of which is the potential to achieve
significant savings in the wider criminal justice context, although we appreciate these savings
are often not realised at the point of expenditure.
Although not without issues, police-led social crime prevention initiatives do offer an opportunity
for the police to become directly involved in supporting and strengthening communities. As
Bradford (2012) argues, the police are ‘a highly visible representation of the state’. When done
correctly, having the police central in supporting local communities can increase the legitimacy
of the state. However, as Forman Jr. (2004, p. 3) argues, young people are often one of the
most excluded groups when it comes to such interventions.
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Table 1: QUALIPREV key indicators used in this analysis
Process evaluation:
Key indicator
Description
Implementation
These are costs in ‘a more absolute sense, i.e. whether the cost in
money, resources or people is reasonable given the constraints or scope
of the project’ (Rummens et al 2016, p. 21).
Accessibility,
participation, and
retention
Rummens et al (2016, p.21) group accessibility with fidelity, however
here it is included with participation and retention as interconnected and
related more widely to ‘engagemnt’.
Fidelity
A measure of ‘whether or not the crime prevention intervention was
implemented as it was originally designed’ (Rummens et al, 2016, p.
21).
External
Confounding factors
Other crime prevention initiatives, wider funding considerations, and
local or broader societal issues (Rummens et al, 2016, p. 21).
Outcome evaluation:
(Re)offending rates
Impact on offending rates for Social prevention schemes which can be
very difficult to ascertain, are measured as ‘self reported’ (Rummens et
al, 2016, p. 2).
Changes in attitude
and development of
social skills
A key indicator for success in Social prevention projects are indicators
of changing attitudes towards offending behavior. We also group here
increased development of social skills that are ‘an important part of the
intervention in social crime prevention projects to increase the
normative barrier against offending’ (Rummens et al, 2016, p. 22).
Cost-benefit/cost-
effectiveness
analysis
This ‘compares the strengths and weaknesses of a prevention project
against its cost,’ and although difficult in this instance we use a series
of what Rummens et al (2016, p. 35) describe as ‘relevant outcome
indicators.’
Table 2: Interview participant schedule and detail
Role [participant identifier]
Duration
Category of
Participant
Details of interview questions
Former Senior Police Strategic
lead [Police manager 1]
27:46
Police
Manager
1. Role and overview of
Aston
2. Success of Aston
3. Oversight (question to be
asked depending on role
and qs 2,3)
Senior Police Strategic lead
[Police Manager 2]
28:13
Police Manager [Police
Manager 3]
30:05
Police Manager [Police
Manager 4]
51:24
PCSO Cheltenham [PCSO 1]
27:04
PCSO
1. Frontline experience of
Aston.
2. Recruitment and
management of the YP and
activities
3. How the Aston project is
working generally
PCSO Cheltenham [PCSO 2]
38:10
PCSO Cheltenham 3 [retired,
formerly involved with Aston]
48:00
PCSOs Gloucester 4 & 5
43:00
Stakeholder 1
38:10
Stakeholder
1. Role and overview of
Aston
2. Success of Aston
3. Oversight (question to be
asked depending on role
and qs 2,3)
Stakeholder 2
26:32
Stakeholder 3
39:59
Table 3: Mission statement, aims, and objectives of the Aston Project and Great Expectations
Mission
statement
Partners and communities working together to reduce harm, crime & anti-social
behaviour, by inspiring young people to meet their potential in a positive and
rewarding environment.
Aims:
1. To reduce harm, crime and anti-social behaviour involving young people,
through an ethos of positive engagement, prevention and intervention.
2. To increase the involvement of young people aged 16 and 17 in education,
employment or vocational training.
3. To achieve long-term sustainability and community ownership.
Objectives
1. To target engagement at young people displaying a vulnerability to actual or
future involvement in harm, crime or anti-social behaviour.
2. To equip and inspire young people to make better life decisions.
3. To utilise the skills and attributes of the individual young person and their
community as part of the solution.
4. To promote an ethos of ‘work for reward’ amongst young people.
5. To develop relationships and break down barriers between young people,
partners and communities.
6. To support local businesses and communities by developing the future local
workforce, using activities and work placement opportunities.
7. Engage & assess identified adults, young people, families & communities,
through information sharing with our partners, to determine levels of
intervention & support. For Great Expectations this will include monitoring
and co-ordinating intervention for gang related activity.
8. To recruit and utilise the knowledge and skills of community volunteers.
9. To robustly evaluate the effectiveness of any prevention and/or intervention
undertaken.
Table 4: The tiered structure for combining Aston Project (Tier 1) and Great Expectations
(Tiers 2-4)
Intervention Tier and description
Type of involvement
Aston Project
Tier 1 – has not been arrested but may be
involved in anti-social behaviour or low-level
crime, and/or are subject of one or more criteria
indicating a future risk of offending.
Engagement only with the
Aston Project.
Great
Expectations
Tier 2 – has received an out of court disposal
for offending (for instance, Restorative Justice,
Youth Caution) or involvement with an
Acceptable Behaviour Contract, but they have
not yet been charged or appeared at court.
Engagement is initiated by
Great Expectations but
following successful
completion may revert to tier 1
and engagement with the
Aston Project
Tier 3 – has previously been charged with
offences and been dealt with at court, but has not
yet received a custodial sentence.
Engagement entirely through
Great Expectations.
Tier 4 – are involved in serious offending and
would not be suitable for prevention or
intervention.
Engagement with police or
police-led task forces
(particularly where gang
related).
Note that the Aston Project deals exclusively Tier 1 participants who are at risk of offending. Great
Expectations deals with Tiers 2-4 to reduce risk of offending and re-offending.
Source: adapted from Wood (2015).
Table 5: Active and Live Participants in the Aston Project February 2015 to February
2016
Location
Active
Sleeping (12 weeks without
engagement)
Cheltenham
31
28
Gloucester
26 (launched)
0
Newent
12
0
Total
69
28
Source: Aston Project Data
Table 6: Views from the Focus Group for young people participating in the Aston Project
It keeps me out of trouble.
You get to learn about the community.
They are very supportive if you have something going on at home they will help you with it.
They help you if you are worried about something at school.
It gets me out of the house. I’m always on the IPad and I get really bored.
I enjoy the activities. Like baking cakes!
It gets you out. I’m fed up playing the PS4.
I improved my behaviour and got to help a disabled boy. I was given an award, a £20 voucher
and we all got to go skiing.
Source: Focus groups with young people participating in the Aston Project
Table 7: Number of hours credited in the Time-bank by month in 2016
MONTH
HOURS CREDITED IN THE TIMEBANK
January
480
February
461
March
308.5
April
370
May
201
June
254
July
217
August
1,389.5
September
200.5
October
291
November
83.5
December
123
TOTAL
4,379
Source: Aston Project Data
Table 8: Gloucestershire Constabulary and OPCC funding commitments to Aston Project 2015-
2016
Category of Funded Support
2015/16
Total OPCC additional support
20,000
PCSOs x 4
240,448
PS Supervisor (0.8 full-time equivalent)
60,752
Senior Tactical Management
N/A
Total Constabulary/OPCC
321,200
Source: OPCC (2017); Wood (2015 ; 2016); Home Office (2014)
Table 9: Aston Project potential savings based on engagement and offending rates for period
March 2015- February 2016
Active participants in the
Aston Project
Offended since
engagement
Potential saving (based on 2009 National Audit
office estimates of £8000 per young person)
69
4
£512,000
Source: Wood, (2016) ; National Audit Office, (2011).
Table 10: Estimated value of volunteering contribution
Hourly
value
No.
hours
Total
value
Value of adult volunteer contributions
£13.65
500
6,825
Estimated economic value of timebanking
£5.30
4,379
23,209
Aggregate hours
4,879
30,034
Source: Hours data: Nolan (2016) Pers. Comm.; Value data: ONS (2016) Annual Survey of Earnings
(ASHE) Tables.
Table 11: Cost benefit analysis for 2015-16: best-case scenario
Item
Cost
Benefit
Total Police and OPCC investment
£321,200
Total intervention savings
£512,000
Total contribution from volunteering
£30,034
(Based on estimates from aggregated data from Tables 6, 7 and 8).
Table 12: Key findings from the Process Evaluation stages
Implementation
There are problems in recruiting and maintaining volunteer
contributions.
Issues of identity arise in the conflation with other similar or
associated projects.
Access,
participation,
retention
Although using frameworks for participation can be problematic,
when a flexible approach is taken, as in this instance, it offers a
useful tool for managing participants. There are, however issues with
accessing hard-to-reach groups, who are underrepresented in the
project.
Police are often not trained as youth workers, or trained at managing
youth-work projects. Consequently, organisational procedures and
youth interventions may not be appropriate.
Fidelity
Inconsistent application of core strategy can have a detrimental
impact on project identity. What constitutes key activities can vary in
different locations, making it hard to identify the approach to youth-
enjoyment and intervention. There is a risk that projects can become
personality-driven in the absence of a core message. However, a
flexible approach can provide benefits in responding to local need.
External
confounding
factors
In the UK context, there are pressures from Austerity politics and
reducing police budgets.
There are questions over whether the Police should be involved in a
youth-intervention project.
Table 13: Key findings from the Outcome Evaluation stages
Offending
rates
It is very difficult to show impact from social crime prevention
interventions, however there are some successes evident particularly in
figures relating to offending rates.
Changes in
attitude and
development
of social
skills
There can be a large amount of community-focused work involved in
social crime prevention initiatives. This can be recorded, with young
people and police officers able to ‘bank’ the hours they contribute with
young people working towards rewards for their participation.
There are concerns over the ‘working for reward’ model which can be
seen as a manipulation of engagement.
Cost-benefit
analysis
Although it is difficult to estimate a cost-benefit ratio, utilising available
data for UK police costs and setting a value on the activity of young
people suggests that the project in this case returns nearly 170% of
investment. This does not include a value for community work carried
out as part of the arranged activities.
