Addressing Youth Crime in the Highlands
Highland’s Joint Committee on Children and Young People will consider a proposal at its meeting tomorrow (Friday) to create a new and unique service to address youth crime in the Highlands. The proposal from Bill Alexander, Head of Children’s Services, is for the appointment of three uniformed police youth co-ordinators to help divert offending young people from further offences.
One officer would work with each of the three Highland Council Youth Action Teams to support the work being done with those young people who have offended once or twice, to stop that behaviour escalating to more persistent behaviour.
They will identify those children who are coming to the attention of the police for anti-social and offending concerns and work with the young offender and his family and bring agencies together, to ensure a focused approach to preventing further crimes. This would include work to support the victims of crime, and to encourage reparation for any previous offences.
Mr Alexander said: “This will enable a quicker, and more targeted approach. It will also allow social work staff and police officers to work more closely together to prevent youth crime. I believe this will be a unique partnership, as nothing quite like it exists elsewhere in Scotland.”
The proposal will involve funding being diverted from services previously run by the voluntary organisation, SACRO. Mr Alexander added: “SACRO have always been at a disadvantage in undertaking this work, as they are dependent on legal processes taking their course, before they can get information about young people who have offended or their victims. This new approach will enable a prompter and more effective response, and we still intend to use SACRO to support other work with offenders, including restorative interventions.”
The proposal has been welcomed by agencies. Councillor Margaret Davidson, Chair of The Highland Council’s Housing and Social Work Committee, said: “This is an encouraging initiative. The Youth Action Teams have been very successful to date, and I believe that the direct involvement of police officers in their work will be reassuring for communities, and can only help further our work to turn young people away from offending.”
Chief Superintendent Bruce Duncan, Head of Operations with the Northern Constabulary, said: "We welcome the proposal to fund three additional police officers to form a multi-agency partnership with the Council’s Youth Action Teams. This complements the extensive work we are doing jointly with partners to address youth crime and would give us further opportunities to progress and develop proactive initiatives, such as youth diversionary activities within our communities across the Highlands."