A report published by the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee on 2 July, ‘Breaking the cycle: Reducing youth reoffending in London’, examines youth reoffending trends in the capital and makes recommendations to help support young offenders to stop committing further offences. T2A welcomes the specific recognition of the importance of the transition to adulthood in criminal justice responses to young adults moving from youth to adult services. 

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Supporting the transition to adulthood

6.22 Young offenders need improved support at the point at which they move to be ’managed’ by adult offending services. When a young person turns 18 they are treated as adults by the criminal justice system, and the types of agencies and interventions involved will change. The majority of stakeholders that we heard from said that once a young offender turns 18, they fall off “the cliff edge” and receive far less support than they are used to.122 There are difficulties for service providers too: Working Links told us that that they were “more often unintentionally excluded from the transition process.”

6.23 Work is being progressed to address this issue. The changes made through the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme mean that there are changes in the way that YOTs interact with services when it comes to transition at 18. London Councils and MOPAC are working with MTCNovo, which now delivers adult probation services in London alongside the National Offender Management Service, to build up their understanding of the London commissioning and delivery landscape. In addition, MTCNovo is developing specific approaches to supporting different groups of offenders, and one of those groups will be young adults.124 We will monitor its progress in improving support and outcomes for this group of offenders, particularly in light of recent reports that suggest Community Rehabilitation Companies are tackling some early challenges around both staffing and IT systems.

The report looks at the challenges that local authorities, the police and other agencies are faced with in London today – namely, working with a hard-to-reach group of young people who need intensive supervision, whilst dealing with resources being cut.

The report makes a number of recommendations to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) that contribute to the upcoming revised youth reoffending strategy