Pubdate: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 Source: Scotsman (UK) Contact: (c) The Scotsman Publications Ltd Website: http://www.scotsman.com/ Author: Iain S. Bruce STRAIGHT AND NARROW FUTURE For the first time, evidence is being gathered to prove that the rehabilitation of young offenders really cuts crime rates. Iain S Bruce reports EIGHT young boys sit hunched over their books, pens clenched firmly in hand. It looks like an everyday classroom scene, except that these Fife teenagers have been wreaking havoc on their community for years with a catalogue of juvenile theft, vandalism and violence. Each of them has a minimum of six offences on their records; the most hardened have accumulated a criminal count nearing 30 by the time they are ready to start shaving. Which is why they are here, ordered by the Children's Panel to complete a 26-week programme for persistent young offenders aged between l4 and 16 designed by APEX - the offender rehabilitation organisation - in co-operation with local police, social work and education services. Over the next six months, they will spend their mornings undertaking a series of classes aimed at honing both their academic and social skills: the afternoons will be passed sampling some of the training opportunities available for young people around Fife. The course's aim is simple: to find them a viable alternative to crime before they get too deeply into trouble - - and are lost in the prison system. Residents in communities suffering from teenage crime epidemics will want to know, however, whether the initiative will work. Will the thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money being pumped into this and the dozens of schemes like it around the country actually turn their criminal alumni into model citizens? This is what Jeanne Freeman intends to find out. The director of APEX Scotland, the pre-eminent training and employment organisation for former offenders, has launched a process which will for the first time deliver a bottom-line measurement of the success or failure of the numerous rehabilitation initiatives her agency currently employs. "It's the big question the public wants answered," she says. "Does rehabilitation work? People want a solid black-and-white answer and in the past we've tended to say that it can't be done, but that's a defensive response and simply won't wash. Our job is to provide the best quality service possible and we should be accountable to the general public for that-it's their tax money that's being spent." It all sounds straightforward enough, but despite reams of academic studies over the years examining the theoretical merits of differing methods of criminal rehabilitation, this is the first ever attempt in the UK to take a quantitative analysis of the initiatives currently being employed in the real world. Freeman's motives behind taking such a bold step are twofold. Firstly, it affords her an opportunity to offer hard evidence that APEX has taken the right line in its approach to a difficult and thorny problem. Secondly, for these schemes to work they must be supported by a confident public: "In the past, the entire field has been shrouded in mystery," she says; "It's like the public have been expected to be comforted by the experts saying. 'trust me, I'm a professional.' That doesn't help. We want to help people feel less fearful of crime and to do that we've got to prove to them that rehabilitation really works." To gain an effective measure of her organisation's effectiveness and set standards of acceptable performance, Freeman has just published APEX's corporate plan, which sets down tough targets for the next 12 months based on a combination of past achievements and consultation with the staff charged with actually delivering the results. The plan demands that of the 5,316 offenders expected to enter an APEX-sponsored programme, 80 per cent will complete the course. Of these, 60 per cent must leave having gained a positive outcome, meaning that they will have secured either a job, a place in further or higher education or entry to an advanced vocational training course. This will require APEX to track its client base more comprehensively than in the past, a task which will require, and has been promised, cooperation from the police, court. social work and prison services. It is only by observing the progress made by graduates from rehabilitation initiatives once they have been released from the programme and are operating under their own steam that a true measure of success or failure can be taken. This exercise will undoubtedly be expensive, and also raises questions over whether the continued monitoring of former offenders once they are officially deemed to have paid their debt to society is not in fact a breach of their civil liberties. Freeman believes that such problems can easily be circumvented, however, adding that whatever the expenses are in the short term, this is a vital step towards ensuring that the future of criminal rehabilitation in Scotland is effective. "We're not doing this just to show everybody how perfect we are," says Freeman. "If we can demonstrate which schemes are working and which are not; then that information will be there for anyone to see and make use of." Although the results will not begin to come through until around April 1999, the benefits for professionals and groups working in the field will, it is hoped be immediate. All of the relevant Government agencies and voluntary organisations will have free access to the data compiled by APEX and the evidence it offers should serve as a platform upon which to build models of good practice for the future. Freeman asserts that improving APEX's standing is in everyone's interests; "In the past. government agencies have looked on voluntary organisations such as APEX as nice, well-meaning amateurs, and we to an extent have contributed to that. We're determined to prove that this is not the case. We want to know that we've done the best job possible. It's good business. There's no point in doing something that doesn't work just because we've always done it. Any rehabilitation scheme must work for the individual and it must work for the community - there's no point otherwise." If the year-end results of the survey live up to APEX's expectations, and the concrete lessons learned are applied across the country, Freeman believes that the public could in turn experience a drop in the crime rate, which would be a solid return for their tax investment. She points out that if offenders get a job or a placement on a worthwhile training or community programme, they are three times less likely to repeat their crime. Given that, at present 80 per cent of the 37,000 offenders entering the prison system this year are adjudged likely to re-offend within two years, a reversal of this trend would result in a massive decrease in offences committed. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski