Young people as victims of crime - concurrent report

Report: 5a
Date: 20 July 2006
By: Chief Executive and Clerk

Summary

The purpose of this paper is to outline some of the key opportunities, challenges and concerns from a range of equality and diversity perspectives for key stakeholders including the MPS, Transport for London (TfL) and British Transport Police (BTP) in relation to young people as victims of crime.

A. Recommendations

That members agree:

1. To request that the MPS work towards an agreed definition of what constitutes a ‘young victim’.
2. To request that the MPS inform members within six month of activities undertaken with young people aged between 18 – 24, particularly (but not exclusively) in further and higher educational establishments.
3. That the MPS explores what steps can be taken to record the disability, faith/non-belief and sexual orientation of young people as victims of crime.
4. To urge that the MPS continues to work with key stakeholders such as Transport for London (TfL) and British Transport Police (BTP) on relevant and appropriate joint initiatives.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. As stated in the MPS report to EODB, youth crime remains a concern for boroughs, with youth victims accounting for 40% of total personal robbery [1]. However, whilst young people, the MPS and local communities have concerns about the numbers of young people committing crime, there has been an overall fall in youth crime reported to key statutory agencies. This year’s re-issued Section 95 statistics showed a decrease in offences handled by Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) [2] in the London from 30,168 in 2003/4 to 29,872 in 2004-2005 [3].

In addition, there have been a number of initiatives to support young people as victims of crime, including the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, special measures [4] and the development of restorative justice.

Whilst the MPS has undertaken a number of commendable initiatives, it also has to be cognisant of how it communicates with young people. Earlier this year, a Safer Neighbourhood advertising campaign which had a ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture of a street to demonstrate the impact of Safer Neighbourhoods locally, had young people in the first picture and erased them the ‘after’ picture. Given the good work done with engaging young people, it is important that mixed messages are not given, which may unwittingly ‘demonise’ young people.

Data collection & quality assurance

2. At the last EODB, Members considered the issue of data collection and quality assurance in relation to monitoring for equality. It was noted that around 25 – 30% of all data gathered by the MPS is either ‘Not Known’ or unrecorded.

The Performance Management Information paper for this Board meeting indicates that this data gathered by self-defined ethnicity (SDE) ‘… must be treated with caution as over half of the victims are recorded as unknown’ (page 2, paragraph 8).

Members agreed that the MPA Planning, Performance & Review Committee and EODB would subsequently receive papers on the remedial action planned by the MPS to address this issue. As part of this process, the MPS is invited to also explore what steps can be taken to record the disability, faith/non-belief and sexual orientation of young people as victims of crime.

Common definitions

3. In producing this report, the MPA Planning & Performance Unit discovered that there was not common agreement across the MPS as to what constituted a ‘young person’. Starting ages for a ‘young person’ ranged from 10 to 12 to 15 -16, depending on the nature of the service and the upper age limit varied from between 18 to 25. Again, consistency should be developed and agreed by the MPS.

Community engagement

4. Engaging with young people is crucial for gaining and maintaining the trust and confidence of young people. The MPS, together with its partners, such as TfL and BTP, have made significant in-roads and developed pro-active strategies to assist actual and potential young victims of crime. However, for the MPS there is the challenge of developing sustainable engagement with young people outside of crime-related operations and initiatives such as Operation Blunt (anti-knife crime) and Operation Paladin (anti-child trafficking).

There are also opportunities for the MPS, together with BTP, to examine what work it has done and could be done with Deaf and Disabled young people. TfL has experience of consulting with this group and there may be potential to develop, where appropriate, some joint approaches.

In addition, the MPS report makes little mention of its work with young people aged 18 – 24 in further and higher educational establishments. This work has been vital in a number of areas including employment and service delivery. One of the recommendations of this report is that Members receive a paper in six months time, outlining what activities have been carried out, with an assessment of the progress made to date of engaging ‘older’ young people who have been or who potentially could be victims of crime.

Trust and confidence

5. Gaining and maintaining the trust and confidence of young people is essential in tackling crime, especially if they become victims of crime. However, there are two areas of police/criminal justice system (CJS) activities, which may equally empower or disengage young people: these are stop and search; the use of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs); and dispersal orders.

The issue of disproportionality of stop and search rates between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people (BAME) as compared to White people has long been considered an important indicator impacting on the level of trust and confidence in the police amongst London’s communities. The MPS, overseen by the MPA Stop & Search Review Board (SSRB), has been making considerable efforts to develop and use ‘intelligence-led’ policing in relation to stops and searches, especially when encountering young people.

The MPS has worked hard with young people at a local level in boroughs such as, for example, Lambeth, Lewisham and Waltham Forest, to develop effective ways of handling stops. However, amongst some young people, there is still resentment at being stopped and searched by the police without any seemingly good reason. This can impact negatively on their experiences of the criminal justice system and lead them – and others with whom they communicate – to lose trust and confidence with the police.

Another area of activity is the use of ASBOs. Anti-social behaviour has a wide legal definition – to paraphrase the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it is behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator. Among the forms it can take are:

• graffiti – which can on its own make even the tidiest urban spaces look squalid
• abusive and intimidating language, too often directed at minorities
• excessive noise, particularly late at night
• fouling the street with litter
• drunken behaviour in the streets, and the mess it creates
• dealing drugs, with all the problems to which it gives rise

From April 1999 to September 2005, 749 ASBOs have been issued in the Greater London area of which 247 were issued to young people aged between 10 and 17, a rate of almost 33%. In that same time period, local authorities issued 752 ASBOs (the age breakdown is not available for this) [5].

Clearly ASBOs (and associated Acceptable Behaviour Contracts [ABCs]) can be a useful tool in dealing with young people who perpetrate crime; but can they be used to empower young people as victims of crime? Or are they another ‘stick’ with which to beat young people, thus leading them to feel victimised – when they may not have committed any anti-social behaviour?

Little or no empirical evidence has been gathered in this area (though anecdotal evidence is plentiful); it may be an activity that the MPS, together with its key partners, may have a view upon.

The final area of police/CJS activity that may impact on young people feeling ‘criminalised’ is the use of dispersal orders. The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, (Sec 30) enables the police and local authorities to work together to identify problem areas where people feel threatened by groups hanging around causing intimidation and acting in an anti-social manner. Where there is a persistent problem with such groups, senior police officers can designate an area for up to six months with local authority agreement. This area could be as small as a cash point or shopping arcade where groups often gather, or it could be as wide as a whole local authority area, as long as there is evidence of anti-social behaviour.

Monitoring and performance

6. Given the Government’s shift in ‘re-balancing the criminal justice system’ towards victims of crime, monitoring the experiences of young people who have been victims of crime will be critical.

Some of this experiential data has been gathered through the development of Witness Care Units. The CPS and the police run these jointly, and Witness Care Officers are responsible for managing the care of victims and witnesses. It will be important to use the data gathered about young people’s experiences as victims of crime to improve performance and to monitor across different equality strands, particularly between different equality groups if there is a negative differential. For example, satisfaction levels between and within equality groups is a vital way of examining whether services are being delivered according to needs.

C. Race and equality impact

1. There are considerable challenges for the MPS in supporting young people as victims of crime: the new Disability Equality Duty (which comes into force in December 2006) and the new Gender Equality Duty (April 2007) will place responsibilities on the police and its CJS partners not only to ensure that services are linked to the diverse needs of young people, but to promote disability and gender equality. This legal requirement is in addition to the existing duties the MPS already has under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and its own policies.

2. On the other hand, there is a tension between supporting young people who have been victims of crime and police activity (through initiatives such as stop and search, Safer Neighbourhoods and the use of ASBOs and dispersal orders), which may make young people feel as if they are being ‘criminalised’. It is this scenario, which may have considerable impact on young people’s trust and confidence and, subsequently, possibly on community cohesion that the MPS together with its partners equally need to address.

3. Finally, there is a real challenge to the MPS and its partners on how to successfully communicate with young people, in all their diversity, and sustain their engagement.

D. Financial implications

1. There are no direct budgetary requirements arising from this paper; however, any review of specific service delivery areas for equality monitoring of young people as victims of crime will attract an opportunity cost for MPA officers.

E. Background papers

• Section 95, 2003-2004& 2004-2005, Home Office
• Report of the MPA Scrutiny on MPS Stop and Search Practice, 2004
• CPS Guidance on Prosecuting Cases of Racist & Religious Crime

F. Contact details

Report author: Laurence Gouldbourne, MPA

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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