Youth Justice System
Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP)
Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIPs), established in 2000, are tailor-made programmes for 8 to 17-year-olds, who are identified as being at high risk of involvement in offending or anti-social behaviour.
YIPs are also open to other young people in the local area. The programme operates in 110 of the most deprived/high crime estates in England and Wales.
YIPs aim to reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods where they work. Young people on the YIP are identified through a number of different agencies including youth offending teams (YOTs), police, social services, local education authorities or schools, and other other local agencies.
The programme gives young people somewhere safe to go where they can learn new skills, take part in activities with others and get help with their education and careers guidance. Positive role models – the workers and volunteer mentors – help to change young people's attitudes to education and crime.
Each project has the following aims:
- to engage with a high proportion of the core group, especially those members deemed most at risk
- to address the risks identified by assessment
- to increase access to mainstream and specialist services, especially in relation to education, training and employment, for the young people involved
- to prevent young people in the programme from entering the Criminal Justice System, and to reduce offending of young people already in the system
- to intervene, not just on an individual level, but with communities and families (especially the parents of the core group).
Each YIP receives an annual grant from the YJB through its YOT and is required to find matched funding from local agencies to add to this. In many areas, programmes also obtain resources from other organisations (such as New Deal for Communities), which share the aim of supporting communities in relation to crime and anti-social behaviour.
An independent national evaluation of the first three years of YIPs found that:
- arrest rates for the 50 young people considered to be most at risk of crime in each YIP had been reduced by 65%
- of those who had offended before joining the programme, 73% were arrested for fewer offences after engaging with a YIP
- of those who had not offended previously but who were at risk, 74% did not go on to be arrested after engaging with a YIP.
Click to download the summary or the full report of the YIP evaluation.