On 27 January 2026, a White Paper ‘From local to national: a new model for policing’ was published, setting out a series of sweeping reforms to policing. In proposals described by the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP as ‘the most significant modernisation in nearly 200 years’, several changes could serve to significantly alter the oversight, governance, and day to day function of policing in England and Wales. 

Key changes

• The creation of the National Police Service (NPS), incorporating agencies including the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency and Counter Terrorism Policing into a single organisation to focus on serious and organised crime, and threats to national security. This proposal seeks to ‘lift the burden of delivering national responsibilities from local forces, ensuring that their focus is entirely on policing their streets.’ 

• A substantial reduction in the number of local forces, possibly by altering force boundaries and merging existing forces into fewer, larger forces. There are currently approximately 43 local police force areas across England and Wales. The White Paper states that an independent review will be undertaken into force structures, resulting in a significant reduction to the number of forces by the end of the next Parliament.  

• The abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) by 2028, to be replaced by Strategic Authority Mayors and local council leaders through Policing and Crime Boards. Over time, these Boards will be adapted to provide the governance of future fewer, larger police forces. 

• Creation of Police.AI, a new centre for the utilisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools and software within policing to automate manual processes. 

What does the White Paper say about young adults? 

The White Paper proposes to continue investment into the Young Futures Programme through Young Futures Hubs and Prevention Partnerships, to reduce the involvement of young people in crime. Highlighting the importance of early intervention, the proposals reference Violence Reduction Units and the County Lines Programme as interventions that prevent young people from being drawn into crime and reduce knife crime. 

What is the Young Futures Programme? 

The Young Futures Programme is a government-led programme consisting of Young Futures Prevention Partnerships and Young Futures Hubs, described in the National Youth Strategy as a ‘new approach to tackle knife crime and violence.’ 

Young Futures Prevention Partnerships ‘identify young people vulnerable to being drawn into crime at local authority level and provide them with support at the right time’, through multi-disciplinary panels run in Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) areas. These Panels will aim to prevent crime and engage in early intervention by identifying and referring young people at risk of crime to a range of different support services, including the Young Futures Hubs.  

Young Futures Hubs aim to bring together services to improve access to opportunities and support for young people at community level. In July 2025, the Prime Minister set out plans to open 50 hubs over the next four years. £2 million has been made available to eight local authorities this financial year to design and implement ‘early adopter’ Young Futures Hubs, in: Nottingham, Tower Hamlets, County Durham, Manchester, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, and Leeds. 

Our view 

Despite welcome language around prevention, our concern remains that an over-investment in policing to the detriment of well-funded, community-based children and young adult provision continues to entrench feelings amongst young adults of being overpoliced and disinvested in. Instead, the police should support diversions from the justice system for young adults, and maximise opportunities to move away from crime and develop positive identities as they navigate the transition to adulthood.  

The ‘bobbies on the beat’ community policing angle, referenced within the White Paper with the commitment to deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel in police forces across England and Wales, comes from a place of viewing increased police presence as a safety measure, ignoring the reality that many young adults – particularly marginalised and overpoliced communities including racially minoritised people, girls and young women, those with care experience and people from socioeconomically deprived communities – feel less safe, and even victimised by the police. Work to divert young adults away from the criminal justice system cannot be relegated to a specific programme or pilot, but rather requires a whole-systems approach and a rethinking of police contact and response tactics. T2A advocates for the police to receive specific training for managing contact with young adults, particularly on stop and search and when making arrests, and that innovative diversion programmes delivered by grassroots, community-based organisations are commissioned and sustainably funded by the Strategic Authority Mayors and Policing and Crime Boards that will come to replace PCCs. 

The increasing reliance on AI within policing is a cause for serious concern. We already know the racialised nature of facial recognition tools, and the impact this has had on community relationships and trust and confidence in the police, particularly amongst young adults. In a recent visioning workshop with T2A alliance members, supporters, and partners, participants were fearful of algorithmic bias in tools used for risk assessment, sentencing recommendations, and predictive policing, noting that these systems often rely on historical data that reflect existing inequalities, such as over-policing in certain communities. Only recently, a man of South Asian heritage was arrested in Southampton on suspicion of burglary as a result of a facial recognition error, despite being 100 miles away from the scene in Milton Keynes, and the suspect looking ten years younger.  Without careful design and oversight, AI tools can reinforce and perpetuate racial biases. T2A workshop participants called for pre-emptive reform to prevent embedding discrimination into automated decision-making. 

Looking forward 

Our vision is to create a blueprint for a justice system that sees young adults not as problems to be solved or issues to be fixed, but as people shaped by their experiences with incredible capacities to progress, grow, and change. Policing structures, responses and adjoining programmes need to reflect this sentiment, and reform not only their geographic boundaries and use of technology, but approach to young adults from a perspective of compassion and guidance, rather than criminalisation and surveillance. T2A is concerned that reform that is not co-produced with communities will have little positive impact, and hope that the implementation of these proposals includes close consultation with young adults with experience of police contact and the organisations that work with and support them.