17 Mar 2015
Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner Christopher Salmon is to take a fresh look at how issues such as youth offending are tackled.
The youth justice system has had some key successes in reducing the number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time or being taken into custody.
However, those young people who have been in custody are highly likely to re-offend.
The Youth Justice Board are now focussing on how best to meet the needs of young people at the point where they resettle into the community and to ensure the right services are in place to support them in desisting from crime.
Mr Salmon said: “It has been demonstrated that prevention services are vital in reducing the number of young people being criminalised. We now need to be looking at prevention in a wider sense and considering how to further reduce re-offending amongst young people.”
The revised approach follows the closure of a service commissioned by Mr Salmon from Welsh charity Hafan Cymru.
As part of the original focus on prevention of offending, Mr Salmon commissioned a service in May 2014 that would provide a bespoke programme for young people, in partnership with other agencies, in order to reduce youth offending, tackle substance misuse and domestic abuse.
Mr Salmon said: “The service ran for seven months but did not deliver what was needed; I thank Hafan Cymru for their efforts. I’ll now take a different approach to the issue.”
Hafan acting CEO Nikki Warrington said: “We understand why Mr Salmon decided to end this scheme. We’re confident that Hafan Cymru’s valuable PREVENT programme, when delivered as part of a countywide approach, will tackle antisocial behaviour and reduce offending in the future - and we’ll continue to seek funding to deliver it.
“In the meantime, we’re delighted to continue to work with Mr Salmon in delivering additional services to support victims of domestic abuse across Dyfed-Powys and we look forward to working with him on other projects in future.”
