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