This research, based on the perspectives of young adults who have committed repeated low-level offences, explores guiding principles for trauma and poverty responsive policing.

This briefing brings together evidence from 100 young adults with personal experience of the ‘revolving door’. Their repeated contact with the criminal justice system is driven by multiple unmet needs. These include mental ill-health, problematic substance use, homelessness, and domestic abuse.

For young adults caught in the tangle of poverty, trauma and structural inequalities, every encounter with the police appears to exacerbate trauma and inequalities. These young people are likely to distrust police and other services and may avoid support, believing that no one will understand or be trustworthy. They often feel hopeless about their life circumstances or chances of recovery.

The briefing makes recommendations about how policing strategies should acknowledge the prevalence of trauma among young adults who commit repeat, low-level responses. These strategies must address disparities in how the police use force and exercise discretion. They must also include a review of operational policing tactics and police custody environments to see how they could be improved to reduce trauma.

This commitment from the police has been developed by New Generation Policing. It acknowledges that young adults need a distinct approach when they experience crisis, become victims of crime, or break the law.

There is strong evidence from neuroscience, psychology and criminology that the brain continues to develop until a person’s mid-20s. The last elements to develop are forward planning, rational thinking and empathy. We also know that poverty, trauma, and mental health needs make young adults vulnerable and more likely to come into contact with the police.

This commitment acknowledges that the right intervention can make all the difference. Preventative measures are reducing the number of children entering the criminal justice system, and a similar approach could be used with young adults.

Our New Generation Campaigners are leading a campaign to reduce the arrest of vulnerable young adults. They are calling for the police to divert young people aged 18-25 into support instead.

Every year 50,000 cautions or convictions are being handed to young adults for low-level and non-violent crimes like theft. The police already have the power to divert young adults into support, instead of arresting them, especially for non-violent and low-level crime. But too often the necessary support services are not available.

This campaign calls for young adults who experience poverty, trauma and inequalities to be offered support to address their health and human needs. Investment in this new approach will reduce crime.

This publication analyses results from two national surveys that aim to understand young adults’ views of policing. Assessing responses by gender, ethnicity, and life circumstances, we explore how young adults’ trust and confidence in policing can be improved. It is our hope that this survey will begin a national conversation about policing young adults.

Both surveys highlight the new generation’s changing attitudes towards policing, crime, and justice. Today, young adults expect the police to understand their personal circumstances and show compassion towards them. They want police officers to be able to identify their needs and divert them away from the criminal justice system into support.

It is vital that police leaders listen to young adults, particularly those with lived experience of the criminal justice system. Police leaders must understand young adults’ concerns, needs and expectations and co-create the future of policing in collaboration with them.

This meeting focused on policing challenges in identifying and supporting vulnerable young adults in the criminal justice system and explored how the involvement of young adults with lived experience at strategic and operational levels can reduce demand on policing. 

This meeting looked at Violence Reduction Units (VRUs). Set up in response to rising levels of violent crime, the Units identified adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), deprivation, school exclusions and other factors as key drivers of serious violence, with some focusing on the under-25 cohort.

Read about our first Knowledge Exchange Network Event held in December 2020.

Presentation from LEAD about the programme and how it works.

Revolving Doors Agency is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Public Defenders Association to promote a new approach to police-led diversion that we believe can better prevent the revolving door of crisis and crime.

This briefing marks the launch of LEAD (Let Everyone Advance with Dignity) in the UK. LEAD is an ambitious, whole system approach to harm reduction and law enforcement. This police-led diversion approach is used pre-arrest and at the point of arrest.

LEAD has been designed specifically for young adults (18-25) in the ’revolving door’. These are people who commit repeated low-level, non-violent crimes, often driven by a combination of mental ill-health, problematic substance use, homelessness, trauma and poverty.

With LEAD, independent decision-makers collaborate on a voluntary basis across health, local authority and PCC boundaries. In addition to police, service providers, community groups, prosecutors and elected officials, people with relevant lived experience are also meaningfully involved as partners.

LEAD is proven to achieve a 58% decrease in rates of rearrests and an 87% decrease in prison admissions for repeat offenders. It also reduces some of the racial disparities among this population and brings reconciliation to police and community relations.

Today, Revolving Doors publishes a review of strategies and activities led or supported by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to address the impact of trauma and poverty among people who are in, or at risk of entering, the revolving door.

We have a once in a generation opportunity to prevent the cycle of crisis and crime. Our strong coalition, led by Revolving Doors Agency and our Patron Lord Patel of Bradford, are committing to action that prevents young adults being pulled into the cycle of crime and crisis and diverting them away, into a better life.

Today, a strong coalition of Police and Crime Commissioners, police services and charities led by Revolving Doors Agency are calling on action to prevent young adults being pulled into the cycle of crime and crisis. 

Our analysis of government data that shows Black young adults (18-24) are significantly more likely to be dragged into the criminal justice system for relatively low-level and non-violent offences, such as theft or minor drug offences. Rather than being given the support they need, they are swept away into our criminal justice system.