Jacqui Smith, Ed Balls and Jack Straw have announced a triple track approach to tackling Youth Crime. The £100 million Youth Crime Action Plan sets out a comprehensive package of tough enforcement and intensive prevention measures as well as more support for parents to tackle offending and reduce re-offending.

Youth crime is completely unacceptable and can have a devastating effect on victims and communities and must be tackled head-on.

While significant resources have been invested in tackling youth offending and improving outcomes for young people since 1997, the new Youth Crime Action Plan will help get young people off the streets late at night, provide intensive support for the most problematic families and implement tougher and more visible Community Payback sentences for young people.

The Plan sets out a ‘triple track’ approach to tackling youth crime that covers:

• tough enforcement, where behaviour is unacceptable or illegal;

• more non-negotiable support, to address the underlying causes of poor behaviour, including more parenting orders and the Youth Rehabilitation Order requiring young people to attend education, go to an attendance centre for group work or undertake treatment for drug and substance abuse; and

• better prevention, to tackle problems before they become serious or entrenched.

Overall, youth crime remains stable but challenges remain – particularly around alcohol-related crime, delinquent peer groups, gangs and young people carrying knives. The comprehensive package includes tough enforcement and intensive prevention measures - as well as more support for parents to tackle offending and reduce re-offending. It also supports families with the most entrenched and complex problems in all areas of England and will offer an intensive programme of action for priority areas where the problem of youth crime is greatest.

Each year around 100,000 young people aged 10 -17 enter the criminal justice system for the first time. The new Action Plan aims to reduce this rate by one fifth by 2020 and in turn to substantially reduce the number of young victims.

To read about the measures in the Action Plan click here>>

Labour’s Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said:

"Youth Crime can have a devastating effect on victims and communities and must be tackled head-on. Today I want to send the message to perpetrators that their actions are unacceptable. They must understand the consequences their behaviour has not only on victims and communities but on their families and their futures.
"Increasingly we are able to identify these young people early and intervene to address the root causes of their behaviour, including supporting and challenging their parents in meeting their responsibilities.

Labour’s Justice Secretary Jack Straw said:

"For that small minority of out of control young people custody is the answer. The crimes they have committed are so serious that there can be no other way of dealing with them. If they deserve to be inside, they will go there.

"One aim of the new Action Plan is to divert young people away from crime, so that they are not unnecessarily drawn into the criminal justice system.

"The Plan will ensure that those at risk of offending are identified as quickly as possible and, along with their families, are given appropriate levels of support to tackle the cause of their behaviour.

Labour’s Children's Secretary Ed Balls said:

"The vast majority of young people are not involved in crime but we must to be tough on the few young people who are and reduce the harm they cause. It's also vital we prevent those who are at risk from getting into this type of behaviour in the first place. This is not a simple choice between enforcement, non-negotiable support or prevention. We need all of those things to work together both at a national level and locally through Children's Trusts if we are to have a real impact on youth crime.

The measures in the Action Plan Plan include:

Better prevention and support for victims

* An expansion of the successful Family Intervention Projects to 20,000 families. In all 110,000 families with children at risk of future high-rate offending will be reached through additional support which will ensure that problems are tackled early before difficulties spiral out of control;
* Increasing the proportion of ASBOs accompanied by a parenting order;
* Expanding Safer Schools Partnerships;
* Expanding provision of youth centres and other activities at times when young people are likely to offend, including Friday and Saturday nights;
* Making permanent exclusion from school an automatic trigger to a comprehensive assessment of needs;
* Expansion of Family Nurse Partnerships; and,
* Innovative ways to support young victims and improving support to witnesses when they attend court.

Tough enforcement

* Using safeguarding legislation to remove at-risk children and young people from the streets late at night.
* Greater use of existing police enforcement tactics, including measures to tackle anti-social behaviour and underage drinking;
* New police enforcement tactics to ensure visible patrols during after-school hours; and,
* Street-based teams of youth workers and ex-gang members to tackle groups of young people involved in crime and disorder.
More visible and effective sentencing
* Better cross agency coordination to identify and target prolific offenders;
* Giving the community the opportunity to say what type of reparation work they want young people on community sentences to undertake, and making them feel the consequences of their actions by requiring them to undertake this work on Friday and Saturday nights;
* Piloting court reviews of high-risk young offenders on community sentences; and,
* Setting out for the first time principles for the use of custody for young people, which uphold custody as the appropriate response for serious, violent or persistent young offenders to ensure public protection.

Reducing re-offending

* A new duty on local authorities to fund and commission education of young offenders in custody;
* Developing a more comprehensive package of support for young people leaving custody; and,
* Ensure access to suitable accommodation and health services for all young offenders leaving custody.