18 August 2023
To embed knowledge of young adults and maturity in police led diversion services
Revolving Doors Agency is a national charity working to change systems and improve services for people who come into repeated contact with the criminal justice system as a result of multiple unmet needs. It combines independent research, policy and lived experience to offer explanations and solutions to the issues of crisis and crime.
The objective of this project is to add to the evidence base around what works in embedding a young-adult specific approach to police led diversion services. It will identify and support emerging policy and operational changes to embed a distinct focus on young adults, in line with the evidence base it built as part of the New Generation campaign and from the T2A evidence library.
There are four key strands to its work 1. develop local areas (trail blazers) to enable a focussed approach to young adult diversion, based on the work previously undertaken by RDA. 2. Seek to influence the Home Office new drug strategy programme. It will make the case for the design and evaluation of the diversion pilots take into account the needs of young adults. 3. Recommence partnership work with the Police Foundation on the ‘Knowledge Exchange Network’ (KEN) to ensure the voices of young adults with lived experience are heard in the forum and the evidence base created through the New Generation policing project is presented to the attending police officers. 4. RDA will scope how the newly created Health and Justice Coordinators, set up to coordinate how local services for people leaving prison under probation supervision can best targeted and champion the distinct needs of young adults.
Outputs of the project are a rebranded and refreshed New Generation evidence base, using evidence from the trailblazer sites and from the Health and Justice Coordinator scoping work. Short briefings will be developed including report targets at Police Forces, Police and Crime Commissioners and Prison and Probation staff. RDA will present the early findings at a presentation of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners in November 2023. A podcast with young adults centred around the Broke But Not Broken report will be developed tying into current cost of living crisis affecting young adults and the increasing risk of criminalisation of poverty. This will also be pitched as a think piece for the national press. An online learning event will be hosted with a public facing report, to share learning with PCCs, local police leaders, and wider political targets. Across all its outputs it will platform the voices of the New Generation lived experience campaigners.
RDA expect to see achieve the following: 1. Through its trailblazer follow-up, dissemination and advocacy work, the learnings from the New Generation trailblazer areas being taken forward locally and recognised nationally. 2. Drug diversions that more effectively support young black men through via the influencing work with the Home Office drugs strategy team and the involvement of young Black men in the co-design and evaluation of pilot drugs diversions. 3. From the Knowledge Exchange Network, members will better understand young adults lived experiences and be able to influence services for young adults. 4. Through the Health and Justice Coordinator strand, a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges for people in this role to champion the need for a distinct approach to young adults.