Editorial: Mentors give hope to young people in custody
Ravi Chandiramani
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Among the myriad challenges of transforming young lives, rehabilitation of young offenders will always be among the toughest. The number of 16- to 25-year-olds behind bars has soared by one-third in the past decade while the majority go on to reoffend, reflecting the enormity of the task.
With this in mind, a Prince's Trust-led coalition of charities is this month advancing the case for a more systemic approach to mentoring young prisoners in order to reduce youth crime and prevent reoffending, which is currently patchy (see p15). In particular it wants to see more ex-offenders encouraged to mentor those now in custody. Its report, Making the Case: One-to-one Support for Young Offenders, found 65 per cent of young offenders said the support of a mentor would help them to stop reoffending and 71 per cent said they would like a mentor who is a former offender. The scenario for society is an attractive one: a virtuous cycle whereby ex-offenders are channelled into supporting young offenders, who in turn receive the empathy and support of those who have gone through the prison system themselves.
Mentoring will inevitably overlap the work of others such as mental health professionals and resettlement workers. Practical help in finding accommodation, gaining employment and keeping off drugs and alcohol is invaluable to a young offender wherever it comes from. This support brings structure to their hopes and helps construct a feasible future. But mentoring is of course more than just signposting or referring young people to services. It consists of a range of emotional as well as practical support framed by the mentor and mentee. The need for this support becomes particularly acute at the highest points of vulnerability in the first few days in custody and upon release, when so many re-offences are committed.
Because it defies any sector specialism or "label" as such, mentoring is fragmented and lacks a unified community. While it might not be new, it is currently in vogue: the Youth Taskforce, for example, is allocating mentors to a thousand at-risk young people.
The charities behind this report have now set about making sense of the national picture of mentoring services for young offenders, including training and recruitment methods, before they lobby government for more resources. Their exercise could be valuable in breaking this country's depressing spiral of youth reoffending.