Scaling it Down? A Study to Identify how 16+ Young Offenders Across Leicestershire Engage with Education, Training or Employment

AuthorVictoria Knight
Pages71-87
71
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Abstract This pap er describes research into the education, training and employment (ETE)
status of young offenders in Leicestershire, England. The study uses data collated by the
Youth Offending Service (YOS) of over 600 young offenders which includes offending
history, sentence outcomes, disposals, gravity scores (seriousness of offences), ASSET
scores (for assessing risk and need) and ETE status. Th e analysis confirms that around 30%
of young offenders aged 16 years or older were likely to be not in education, education,
employment or training (NEET). The Youth Justice Board (England and Wales) policy
demands that 90% of young offenders should be in ETE ( YJB 2006). This study has
uncovered a shortfall which h as revealed some important continuities in the proportions of
young people that disengage in ETE. The analysis outlines that the ways in which actuarial
mechanisms like ASSET are currently used is not fully exploit ing the potential of these kinds
of assessments. Certain features of ASSET can indicate potential risks of NEET and could
thus provide practitioners with early indicators to make referrals and seek out meaningful
ETE. Leicestershire YOS is currently reviewing the ways in which they target, assist and
support this particular cohort in response to this research.
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Keywords NEET, ETE, ASSET, young offenders, gravity scores, scaled approach
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The Youth Justice Board (YJB: 2006) has stipulated that 90% of all supervised young
offenders are expected to engage with education, training or employment (ETE), This is
also echoed in the National Indicators stipulated by The New Performance Framework for
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I would like to thank Leicestershire Youth Offending Service for this research opportunity, special
thanks to Navdeep Cozens-Patel, Wendy Poynton, Caroline Howden and Lindsey Kirby. I would
also like to thank colleagues at De Montfort University for their advice, scrutiny and feedback;
Jean Hine, Jason Wood, Kaushika Patel, Denis Anthony, Thilo Boeck and Roger Smith. Also thanks
to the anonymous reviewers’ comments.
British Journal of Community Justice
©2012 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 10(2): 71-87
Knight
72
Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships: Single Set of National Indicators (2007),
in particular NI045 under the Safer Communities remit of this initiative. The achievement
of this target is counted during the last week of their official supervision with the Youth
Offending Service (YOS). According to Leicestershire YOS’s records they s uggest that many
young people routinely engage with education, training and employment (ETE)
throughout their order and beyond. This is not a seamless or continuous experience for
these young people, as echoed by Sutherland (2009:48 ) and the Audit Commission
(1998:1). This particular cohort also features in the growing NEET population with 16% of
16-24 year olds in England according to DfE information (2012). Offenders are over
represented within the NEET population (Coles et al 2002) as outlined by the end of order
statistics on ETE engagement.
Successful and sustainable engagement with ETE has been identified as one of the
pathways to reduce or even desist from future offending (Machin et al 2010). It is also
noted that there are barriers to engagement with ETE and interventions need to respond
to these (YJB 2006). Cooper et al (2007) also i dentified barriers in relation to ETE for
serious and persistent offenders such as low self-esteem, behaviour and emotional
problems, issues with mental health and poor social skills. In addition, practical factors like
finance, transport and childcare also hindered engagement.
Actuarial assessments
The role of the ASSET, introduced in 2000, can also be informative in r elation to
understanding a young person’s needs or difficulties across a range of factors. It is also an
indicator for agencies across the youth justice system to implement the right interventions
and work towards helping the young person desist or reduce any future offending (YJB
2006, 2003, Sutherland 2009). The YJB’s study Barriers to Engagement (2006) found that
‘45% of the young people in the sample had access to full-time provision…and 28% had no
provision at all’. Of those not engaging in full-time ETE they found that these young people
tended to be ‘older (particularly those aged 16), were female, had been in the care
system, had literacy and numeracy difficulties, had previous convictions, had been subject
to more serious disposals and were more likely to reoffend’. Despite the emphasis on
compulsory schooling, young people known to t he criminal justice system even under the
statutory school age (16 years old) were also found not to be successfully engaging in full
time education. The YJB reported that this was around half of all young offenders.
Disengagement with ETE is not uncommon amongst young offenders, yet the direct
relationship between disengagement with education and offending continues to be
contested and problematic (Baker 2005; Knight and Hine 2009).
ASSET includes a range of factors that are discussed with the young person. Overall t he
core profile seeks to address 12 issues (or dynamic factors) relating to a young person’s
lifestyle and well-being. These include the following, for which a score from 0-4 is
identified i n order to indicate risks of further offending: living arrangements, family and
personal relationships, education, training and employment, neighbourhood, lifestyle,
substance use, physical health, emotional and mental health, perception of self and others,
thinking and behaviour, attitudes to offending , motivation to change and offending

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