Page 83 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

the police. As such, ensuring that they work effectively is of paramount
importance. If children can see the benefits of engaging with these agencies
they are more likely to desist from crime. However, YOTs are not given
statutory funding for diversion work and VRUs do not have long term funding
to be sustainable.

Violence Reduction Units

VRUs have expanded following the success of the model being used in
Glasgow. VRUs are commissioned to implement a public-health approach,
identifying evidence-led practice that will reduce violence. For example, some
VRUs place navigators in hospitals so that they can reach the victims of violent
crime. By speaking to these victims as early as possible, they are able to reduce
the prospect of retaliatory attacks.

The Government has provided funding for 18 areas to establish VRUs, which
are given the power to convene a range of expertise to tackle the issue. For this
reason, the Youth Violence Commission viewed VRUs as having a key role to
play in reducing child violence. It saw VRUs as having three primary purposes:

a) to lead on the development, implementation and commissioning of local
level initiatives to reduce violence;
b) to feed the learning generated by each VRU’s local level work into
relevant evidence bases; and
c) to identify and promote the national level policy changes that are beyond
each VRU’s scope and control, but are nevertheless crucial to securing
reductions in serious violence.
We agree that VRUs will play a key part in reducing violence. 231 They can
also play a key part in reducing racial disparity. 232

4.9 This programme shows that drawing on the experience of experts allows
children to be better safeguarded and for improved decision-making processes.
Rolling out the intervention programme in all custody suites would help all
children who are arrested. Where it is not possible to embed workers, we

231 Recent research indicates that 64% of VRUs believe their interventions to either be fairly effective
or very effective, and a further 31% of respondents believing it is too early to say. See Home Office,
Process evaluation of the Violence Reduction Units, August 2020, p. 54.
232 See Youth Violence Commission, Final Report, (July 2020).

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