A training programme is to be set up for volunteers who will act as befrienders or mentors for young people at risk of offending, and if it proves effective the aim is to use the same model elsewhere. These will provide a base for the training of the volunteers. Young people will become involved in the scheme while they are still in custody. The project recognises that communities should not wash their hands of individuals in custody and that they have a role at an early stage. I am told that the volunteers who take part will be from the local communities to which the young offenders will be returning on release - people with whom they can identify and who might serve as positive role models, or just as friends.
Youth crime is mostly a local phenomenon.
It harms community life, and it demands local action with victims, offenders and community groups. For this reason the local aspect of this scheme seems to me particularly important. Local churches will be involved ecumenically, and I understand other agencies as well. It requires little formal support, and it allows local people to respond in a positive way to reducing crime and enabling the restoration back into the community of individuals who have wronged that community. Without being naive about the difficulties in doing this, I do believe that schemes of this kind may be one way in which we can begin to rebuild the kind of local community life which is essential to recovering our society's moral health.