Working With Offenders
Final Warning Projects
This is a summary of the national evaluation of the Youth Justice Boards (YJB) Final Warning Projects.
Title: Final Warning Projects
Author: Simon Holdaway (University of Sheffield)
Date published: August 2004
Number of pages: 45 (summary 14)
Final Warnings were introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, replacing the cautioning of offenders under the age of 18. Under the new provisions, if a first offence is assessed as being within a prescribed range of gravity and the young offender admits guilt, they receive a Final Warning.
The young person is then referred by the police to a Youth Offending Team (YOT), who assess whether or not they are suitable for intervention.
Projects
An evaluation of 30 Development Fund projects (covering 18 police forces) that sought to develop various Final Warning interventions was carried out. Types of interventions included:
Restorative justice programmes
Cognitive behaviour programmes
Drugs- and alcohol-related offences programmes.
Referrals
Projects with high numbers of referrals had the following features:
Project staff were present at the Final Warning and made contact with the young person to stress the value of their project.
Restorative justice was an option, with a range of work to offer offenders.
Restorative conferencing formed part of the Final Warning delivery.
Projects with no or low numbers of referrals had the following features:
They often catered for offenders who had committed serious offences.
The acceptance criteria for referral to the project were not defined clearly and/or inadequate information about the purposes and work of the project had been given to YOT staff assessing young offenders
A rigid timetable of interventions that could not accommodate new young offenders until the current cycle had ended and a new one was about to begin
There was no contact with young offenders at the time of the Final Warning or during the assessment of need
The young offenders who had been subject to a more serious order of the court were given priority over those referred for Final Warning interventions, which took a lower profile in the projects' work.
Restorative Justice
Where a young person was identified as suitable for a restorative conference, YOT staff worked very closely with the police and planned painstakingly for the Final Warning to be delivered immediately after the conference had been held. This created a suitable setting for the Final Warning, relating it closely to the consequences of offending.
Mentoring
Mentoring project workers defined their task as being to befriend and assist a young person rather than address offending in any way, unless the young person raised the subject. As such, mentors provided a distraction from crime, introducing alternative activities.
YOT staff attended Final Warning surgeries and explained their project and how it could be of benefit. Their attendance at the Final Warning surgery made a clear link between the intervention and the Final Warning resulting in a higher number of referrals to the project.
Substance mis-use
There were difficulties engaging young offenders on these schemes. YOT staff believed this was related to the allocation of appropriate referrals. They felt that they did not have clear enough criteria to determine which young offenders on Final Warnings were suitable for this kind of project.
Also young people were reluctant to own up to having any involvement with drugs when picked up for what they saw as a minor offence.
Evaluation Findings
Reoffending
Based on the interviews conducted with project participants:
13 project workers felt that the young person they had been working with would not reoffend
14 parents were also fairly convinced that their child would not do so
Just 3 young offenders thought they would probably reoffend
31% of young offenders on the programmes reoffended during the year, from 1 December 2000 and 1 January 2001 - 26% when only court convictions were included in the analysis
According to Young Offender Teams (YOTs) records, 81% of cases were said to have been completed successfully.
The majority of parents and young offenders expressed positive views about the projects. Parents particularly liked them because they helped to keep their offspring occupied.
Some however felt that the interventions were not long enough and that projects were located in unsafe areas.
Many funded projects diverted Final Warning resources to other forms of provision. It would appear that over half the sample of 30 projects did not target young people receiving Final Warnings.
Recommendations
Delivery of Final Warnings
It is important that the period of time between the offence and the giving of a Final Warning is not too long. A long period may mean the young offender does not mentally associate the Final Warning with the offence. It must be made clear this Warning is the consequence of his actions. The period of time, however, should also be sufficient to allow a young person to think about their offending. 3 weeks is seen as an ideal period.
A Final Warning should be delivered AFTER referral to a YOT because:
police officers delivering the Final Warning can be trained adequately so that they explain their action and relate it to the subsequent work of the YOT
police and YOT staff can make an informed decision about whether or not a young person should be given a Final Warning
a clear link between the Final Warning and the seriousness of the offence for which an intervention has been planned can be secured
there is enough time to maximise the opportunity for parents and others to be present when the Final Warning is given
YOT staff who deliver the intervention, including those working on external projects, can be present at the Final Warning, maximising the possibility of a young person's engagement with it
young offenders and their parents can ask questions about the nature of the Final Warning and the intervention of a wide range of personnel.
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Summary of Final Warnings Projects 
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