Informing government policy on resettlement of young offenders

Neal’s early work in this area was the Evaluation of Medway Secure Training Centre (1998-2000, for the Home Office), and the National assessment of the Detention and Training Order (2000-2003, for the Youth Justice Board, with Nacro). These have been described by the Youth Justice Board as “groundbreaking studies” that revealed serious failings in the aftercare system for young prisoners, with a breakdown in supervision and only a minority having education, training or employment opportunities. Recommendations included more inter-agency cooperation and an integrated approach to services.

The research reports were published by the Home Office and Youth Justice Board, and resulted in resettlement moving towards a priority issue in custody provision. The reports were cited repeatedly in YJB strategy documents and guidance, which led to national programmes in Integrated Resettlement Support. In the meantime, Neal gave presentations to senior Youth Offending Team and Probation Service practitioners on the hurdles for resettlement. He also sat on the Nacro Committee on Children and Crime, which produced additional recommendation for youth justice.

More refined recommendations for aftercare of young prisoners were fed into policy and practice from the Centre's evaluation of the national RESET resettlement programme (2005-2010, for Rainer/EC, with ARCS UK). This developed findings from the previous research by stressing the importance of the coordination of partnerships with non-justice agencies and between custody and community bodies. The report and accompanying policy recommendations document were published in 2010.

The YJB Chair, Frances Done, said in her Forward to the report that it “provides us with clear messages to inform the way to tackle resettlement in the future”. Indeed, the YJB have since stated that the Centre’s RESET research “fundamentally influenced the development of the YJB’s ‘consortia’ approach” that defines current national policy on aftercare and is “increasingly seen as a ‘business as usual’ solution” (YJB). As recommended by the Centre for Social Research - this approach sees local resettlement managers coordinating the partnership of justice and non-justice agencies to provide integrated support to offenders leaving custody. It also sees greater cooperation between custody and community bodies.

Our researchers have presented invited papers on resettlement to policy makers and practitioners at Youth Justice Board Conventions and seminars with policymakers in Wales. Neal Hazel also sits as an advisor to the YJB’s Resettlement Programmes Board and has recently inputted to the development of practical guidance for practitioners on resettlement (the YJB’s Checklist on Resettlement).

Recently, the research was cited by pressure groups in response to government consultations on youth justice, and cited in a report by the Children’s Commissioner. The RESET research was also cited multiple times in the influential report on youth justice (2012) by the Centre for Social Justice think tank (Iain Duncan Smith).

In addition, the YJB has recognised the research evidence provided by the Centre has “significantly contributed to the YJB successfully bidding for more money to fund resettlement initiatives... at a time of considerable financial restraint”.

It is calculated that the work and recommendations on resettlement by our researchers has helped shape the future of more than 50,000 young offenders through changes to policy and practice.