‘Lives in transition: A psychologically informed approach to homeless young offenders’.

25.09.2020: One of the highlights this week, as the Lead for Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) at the national youth homeless charity; Centrepoint, has been the completion of and presentation by a MSc student of her project; ‘A Systematic Review of Youth Homelessness and Offending’ (Self et al, 2020), that I have been jointly supervising with our policy team this year. I have previously discussed the importance of research and evaluation as part of a PIE in a previous blog (c.f. PIE Blog dated 24.07.2020: https://medium.com/@DrHelenMiles/what-is-the-role-of-research-and-evaluation-in-a-psychologically-informed-environment-pie-f589bf5e310f). In particular, the importance of a PIE to ‘contribute to the research base of what works’ and to ‘use this evidence to improve the quality of our service delivery as well as influencing national policy in addressing youth homelessness’ (c.f. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340022/1/Good%2520practice%2520guide%2520-%2520%2520Psychologically%2520informed%2520services%2520for%2520homeless%2520people%2520.pdf, p.26).

In 2018, Centrepoint joined forces with NACRO (National Association for the Care & Resettlement of Offenders) to produce a policy report outlining some of the issues around youth homelessness and offending behaviours (c.f. https://centrepoint.org.uk/media/2610/centrepoint-custody-leavers-report.pdf). This report noted that whilst positively there had been a 30% decrease in the number of young adults in custody since 2002, they still made up 16% of the whole prison population. However, of most concern was the finding that over a third of young adults who leave custody reoffend within three months, and in London specifically; this rises to 42%. When each prison place costs around £35,000 a year, and each crime leaves a victim in society, the cost of neglecting the issues surrounding youth offending is high. One of these issues is ‘homelessness’, with young people often noting that without somewhere to live, their own option to survive may be to commit a crime. Consequently, the report argued that in order to reduce reoffending, young people in custody needed the right preparation before leaving to address their social and criminogenic needs. This included access to a safe and stable home with an ongoing support network and financial security, through access to appropriate education, training and employment and/or state benefits that were set at a ‘living’ level not discriminated against by age (c.f. https://twitter.com/centrepointuk/status/1306621703938813953).

Moreover, a recent report (Bateman, 2020) by the National Association for Youth Justice (NAYJ) on the state of UK Youth Justice (c.f. https://thenayj.org.uk/cmsAdmin/uploads/state-of-youth-justice-2020-final-sep20.pdf?utm_source=Children+England+Email+News&utm_campaign=aa7d382efd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_09_23_08_51&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1adc042fba-aa7d382efd-64425289) raised concerns about the lack of ‘child first’ emphasis within the current system, despite repeated pledges that this would be reformed. Over two decades ago, it was argued (e.g. Haines & Drakeford, 1998) that a genuinely ‘child first’ ethos would be more ‘proactive’ rather than ‘reactive’ and would address the inequality and disadvantage ‘outside the criminal justice system’ that led to disproportionate levels of criminalisation for some young people. However, expenditure on children’s services in England has declined over the past decade, with one estimate suggesting funding per child in the general population fell by 32%, between 2010/11 and 2017/18, with cuts being sharper in areas of higher deprivation (Action for Children et al, 2019).

So what does youth offending look like? And how does it relate to homelessness? There is evidence from our recent systematic review as well as other sources (e.g. McAra, 2018; Bateman, 2020) that contrary to what the mainstream media may portray, most youth offending is relatively minor offences such as shoplifting, theft, criminal damage, breach of the peace and to a lesser degree violence and knife crime. Moreover, whilst criminal behaviour is relatively common amongst young people (Bateman, 2020), those young people that come to the attention of criminal justice agencies are ‘disproportionately drawn from working class backgrounds with biographies replete with examples of vulnerability’ such as poverty (Yates, 2010, McAra, 2018). Growing up in poverty is typically associated with adverse family circumstances, poor schooling, unstable or inadequate housing, and higher levels of ill health and psychological wellbeing, all of which increases the likelihood of offending (Smith & Wynne-McHardy, 2019). In addition, ‘looked after children’ within our care system are also more vulnerable to adopting a ‘street lifestyle’, to being groomed by gangs into criminality (e.g. county lines or sexual exploitation) or even to be more likely to be incarcerated than their non-care peers (Day et al, 2020). However, often those vulnerable young people who offend are also more likely to be victims of crime (Smith & Ecob, 2007).

To explore these issues further, focusing on youth offending and homeless in particular, our recent systematic review (Self et al, 2020) looked at three specific questions. What are the relationships between youth homelessness and offending? What might be suitable interventions? And what implications does this have for UK policy or approaches moving forward? This review examined the evidence based for the past 50 years (the length of time the Charity Centrepoint has been operating for), reviewing the academic as well as ‘grey’ social policy literature to attempt to start to answer these questions. This was no mean feat for the student as over 3000 international studies were identified in the initial scoping exercise(!) However, this did reduce significantly (n=22) when we focused just on UK studies, highlighting that there is a need for further research, specifically quantitative and examining the impact of ethnicity or gender, in this previously somewhat neglected area of youth justice.

The most significant finding on the relationship between youth homelessness and offending was the impact of disrupted family relationships. This is not surprising, as it is already known that this is a key factor in youth homelessness generally, with around 6 out of 10 young people referred to Centrepoint because of family breakdown. The impact of being in care, substance use, mental illness, gang involvement and trauma were also found to influence the relationship between youth homelessness and offending behaviours (Self et al, 2020). Of particular concern was that the most common reason reported in the systematic review studies amongst homeless young people for re-offending behaviours was ‘survival’, suggesting that the current system may be failing our vulnerable young people due to a lack of appropriate resettlement provision and post custody support. Indeed, the other research study that I have been involved in supervising recently (Krist et al, 2020), which examined the needs of Centrepoint’s current population of homeless young people (utilising our 2019 dataset; n=3,452), indicated that there were high levels of forensic needs and past offending amongst our current cohort. This research found over half (54.7%) had been involved with the criminal justice system, with 18.5% being convicted of an offence, and 16.4% having previously received a custodial sentence. However, a significant amount (over a third; 34%) of our homeless young people had also been a victim of crime.

Importantly, the systematic review also positively identified what can be done in the future in terms of intervention and policy. In particular, the research evidence suggests that to mitigate the risk of youth offending and homeless, efforts should focus upon interventions such as family mediation, relational support and appropriate accommodation placements for homeless young offenders. The review noted that such supported accommodation placements were often currently lacking, or unwilling to work with particular types of offences (e.g. arson, sexual offending), increasing this populations’ risk of homelessness (and therefore their risk of re-offending). In addition, our review has highlighted the need to work collaboratively with all agencies, statutory or voluntary, involved with a homeless young offender, to improve homelessness pathways and services, although not at the risk of devolving responsibility.

In summary, these research studies have been particularly helpful and timely for our organisation, as we look, as per PIE, to use our data and evidence to inform our future practice. For example, ensuring that in our services staff have the appropriate training to work with this population, and our processes are both PIE and trauma informed. Critically, to ensure that we work with homeless young offenders to build trusting and supportive relationships that can engage this often ‘hard to reach’ population in order to provide stability and increase their opportunities to access education, training and employment (all factors known to reduce recidivism).

As Gray (2020) notes it is important when working with young offenders, whether homeless or not, that we adopt a relational desistence informed approach that whilst acknowledging risks and vulnerabilities also builds on young peoples’ strengths (c.f. Good Lives Model of Reducing Reoffending; Ward et al, 2008; https://www.goodlivesmodel.com/). Such a psychologically informed approach to address well-being and past trauma and develop relational support can instill a sense of hope that a homeless young offender can alter their destiny through empowering them to develop and realise their pro-social goals and aspirations (Burnett & Maruna, 2004). Rather than ‘objects of intervention’, they need to viewed as subjects in charge of their own process of change and in ‘transition’, whose engagement with us is built on the fact that they understand the benefits to themselves of doing so (Bateman & Hazel, 2013).

Moreover, rather than seeing homeless young offenders as ‘a problem’, the provision of non-stigmatising support is arguably a matter of rights and social justice (Smith, 2020) and recognises that whilst they may have done wrong, they are also likely themselves to be the victims of extensive injustice or trauma, at both personal and societal levels (McNeill, 2009). Consequently, to ‘change their story’ to the benefit of all, means we need to understand their story so far. In a PIE, their offending behaviours are not ‘excused’, but can be ‘explained’ or understood, and therefore, this can help us to work differently with them to create positive outcomes in the future…