Reaching the ‘Hardest to Reach’

Abstract

Services can play a vital role in promoting desistance from offending for those leaving prison. However, young men are the least likely group to engage with or sustain contact with support, and the most likely to return to prison. This article presents findings from a longitudinal evaluation in Scotland which highlights the often unreported wary attitude that this population have towards services, but also the ways in which this can be overcome. Ultimately, it is argued that a youth work-and solution-focused approach can be successful, and above all else the key worker's persistence in building relationships crucial.

Desistance Approaches in Youth Justice – The Next Passing Fad or a Sea-Change for the Positive?

“…This was done by also providing an experiential space through which practitioners could see the current youth justice intervention and planning styles through the eyes of young people; this was designed to engage their emotions in order to really ‘get’ why positive approaches are likely to be more effective than those dealing with deficits. The youth justice examples used in the second part of the training concentrated on the projects referenced earlier of the personal goals work assessed by Fitzpatrick et al (2015), which was based on 16–17-year-old young men, and the ‘Moving On Service’ in Scotland (Nugent, 2014), which encompassed the wider age range of 16–21-year-old custody leavers. It also drew on the ‘child first, offender second’ perspective of Haines and Case (2015), incorporating throughout the presentation findings from Johns et al (2016) on the importance of worker–young person relationships for positive change.…”

“…In this YJB report, a good relationship between the client and worker was identified as improving self-esteem and self-worth, empowering for action and increasing connectedness with others beyond that relationship – all of these being necessary precursors to change. The importance of this relationship as transformative has been evidenced in the ‘Moving On’ project in Scotland, which rejected offence-focused work for young custody leavers in favour of strong worker–client relationships and practical help (Nugent, 2014). Incidentally, this project also provided a good example of increasing social capital, as the workers actively helped the young people to engage with opportunities, also providing them with office space in which to work.…”

“…It is possible that such factors as maturity might affect the application of an essentially adult model to youth justice. However, instances of desistance approaches have started to emerge (see, for example, Fitzpatrick et al, 2015; Nugent, 2014), and now the YJB have decided to embrace this growing tide, crystallised in the launching of AssetPlus, an assessment system purporting to support desistance approaches (YJB, 2014). As an aside, it is worth acknowledging that using the term ‘desistance’ could be seen as essentially negative (desistance being related to stopping), whereas the process described is actually positive in nature.…”

The pains of desistance

“…The idea of ‘mutual aid’ or co-desistance is fairly new, and undoubtedly will have opponents who deem it a risk. However, it can and has been successful (Nugent, 2015; Weaver, 2013, 2015; Weaver and McCulloch, 2012). By believing in and supporting each other, desisters might play a valuable role in helping each other towards a new identity.…”

Desistance: A Utopian Perspective

“…Such agents were seen as having a key role to play here as meso‐brokers opening doors to access the ways to desistance and beyond to both social and community capital. In addition, other meso‐brokers could come in the form of employers and ‘co‐desisters’ in opening up social and bridging capital to another and vice versa (Nugent 2015; Weaver 2013, 2016; Weaver and McCulloch 2012). As one respondent wrote: ‘My mate in here has connections in the building trade.…”