With the election results behind us, T2A has written to our new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to outline five key priorities for the incoming government.

We’ve drawn on the research and expertise of our voluntary sector partners in the T2A Alliance to choose five areas where our next government can have most impact – creating a better justice system that helps young adults move forward with their lives.

A comprehensive cross government young adult strategy

Research has repeatedly shown that offending behaviour doesn’t happen in isolation. Revolving Doors Agency’s 2021 Broke, But Not Broken report found that the complex interplay between poverty and inequality can lead to repeat contact with policing.

It states that young adults “who are drawn into the justice system are often facing multiple challenges and severe, cumulative, and often very complex problems. These are all too often not properly understood or addressed”.

Young adults with lived experience who contributed to the research highlighted themselves how “lack of money, lack of opportunities and problematic relationships drive them into a cycle of crisis and crime”.

It’s clear that no one agency has the resource or data to understand why young adults become involved in the criminal justice system.

To tackle this complex issue, an overarching, cross-government strategy is needed – one that will connect agencies across health, education, employment, and housing to ensure no young adult is left behind.

Young Adult Probation Hubs

When many young adults turn 18, they face a ‘sharp cliff edge’ in support. Overnight, they become ‘adults’ and no longer access the benefits of the youth justice system and its rehabilitation focus.

The Youth 2 Adult (Y2A) Hub was established in 2022 as a collaboration between MOPAC, the Ministry of Justice and London Probation. This innovative pilot brought together probation services and external service providers in one specialist Hub to offer a holistic package of support to young adults. Service delivery is based on trauma-informed practice and young adult first approaches.

Young adults can access all the support they need in one place, including mentoring, housing, education and speech and language therapy.

“I never feel like I am treated like someone who has broken the law, this place is focused on healing.”

Young Adult

This innovative approach empowers young adults to make positive life changes and spend less time on probation – a key priority for the new government who will seek to relieve the overburdened probation service.

Building on the Labour party’s manifesto proposal for youth hubs, we would like to see a national network of Young Adult Probation Hubs to serve as central points for supervision, rehabilitation, and support.

Commissioning young adult services from the voluntary sector

Time and again, young adults tell us about how the best support they receive is from organisations who understand their experiences, the communities they come from, and the overlapping challenges they face in daily life.

Furthermore, some organisations have lived experience embedded in their staff and support services, meaning they can provide peer mentoring and positive role models – both of which are essential components in facilitating young adults to shift towards a pro-social identity.

It’s clear that many voluntary sector organisations can connect with and support young adults in the criminal justice system in a way that statutory services cannot. The outcomes of many of their interventions are excellent, but too little is done to integrate their work into the criminal justice system. A comprehensive commissioning strategy for voluntary sector organisations who provide services to young adults in the justice system is needed.

Problem solving courts for young adults

The Centre for Justice Innovation’s feasibility study of creating problem solving courts in the West Midlands highlighted a range of benefits to this approach.

Firstly, young adults often end up in the criminal justice system due to unaddressed needs e.g. neurodiversity, trauma, violence. This approach allows them to benefit from wrap-around support from different agencies who collaborate and share knowledge to address what is causing the offending behaviour. With a strong support network in place, and clear goals identified, young adults are more likely to fully engage in the process.

Young adults’ specialist courts could be established without legislative change: young adult cases could be heard by judges with experience of dealing with 10–17-year-olds. While adult legislation could be applied, pre-sentence information would include a focus on maturity in relation to the context of the offence. It could also allow opportunities for young adults to engage with magistrates and professionals about their progress. This would improve young adults’ perceptions of the process and help ensure a successful transition to adulthood.

For the government to tackle the cumulative disadvantages that many young adults face, and to reduce reoffending, investing in problem solving courts would be a wise decision.

Police led young adult diversion from justice services

Every locality should have pre-court diversion initiatives specifically designed for young adults as research shows that formal processing can be ineffective for low level offending.

Devon and Cornwall Police have implemented an evidence-based approach to diversion for young adults aged 18 to 25 and care leavers. Their Out of Court Resolution scheme focuses on reducing reoffending by taking a strength-based approach.

Key workers, specially trained to respond to young adults’ needs, engage with them outside official settings. The scheme provides neurodiversity screening, personalised budgets for education and employment opportunities, and pre-prosecution mental health support.

We spoke to the key workers recently, both of whom spoke effusively about how the scheme has empowered many young adults to shift to a pro-social identity. They shared numerous examples of how the young adults they’ve worked with have improved their mental health, pursued careers and life goals, and made reparations to those affected by their actions.

Pilot diversion scheme empowering young adults to make positive changes in their lives

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