CONTENTS

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Editorial

The XVI General Assembly Of The IAYFJM

The Election Of The Executive And Council For 2002-2006

General Committee 2002 to 2006

The IAYFJM XVI World Congress, 26-31 October 2002

Norman Humes

Establishment Of The Post Of Lay Magistrate

Martin McMullan

Incarcerate Less - Prevent More: International Evidence On Youth At Risk

Professor Irvin Waller

“Children And Domestic Violence” The Effects And Implications For Contact

Eleanor ONeill

Centre Grind: research questions the legal right of violent parents to contact

Chris Arnot

Court-Related Family Mediation Pilot Project

Robin McRoberts

Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising

Lawrence W. Sherman

President : The Lord Chancellor

Vice President : Mrs Marguerite Faulkner, OBE, JP

Chairman : Mr Norman Humes, JP

Hon Sec : Mr Samuel Brian Rea, MBE, JP

Hon Treasurer : Mrs Marie Rooney-Woods, JP

Magazine Editor : Dr W. G. McCarney, OBE, JP

Published by the N. I. Youth and Family Courts Association,

Belfast Magistrates’ Court, Chichester St.,

Belfast BT1 3JB

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great humility and with great pride that I accept the symbol of office of the Presidency of our Association.

I accept it with humility because, as a lay magistrate, I come from the lowest ranks of the judiciary. My predecessors have been very distinguished judges, distinguished not only in their own country but on the international scene. The distinguished lineage stretches from the first two Presidents – Henri Rollet of France who was elected informally in 1928 and Paul Wets of Belgium who was elected at the first Congress in Brussels in 1930. We are honoured to have four of our more recent distinguished presidents with us at this congress – Horst Schüler Springorum of Germany, André Dunant of Switzerland, Jean Zermatten, also of Switzerland and, of course, Lucien Beaulieu of Canada who has just handed over the symbol of office to me for safe keeping for the next four years. I have had the honour to work with all four of these former Presidents and I hope that I have learned something from them.

I accept this symbol of office with pride because this is a great organisation which can trace its roots back to 1911 when the Tribuneaux Des Enfants held their first international congress in Paris.

This medallion has a particular significance for me because it was a gift to the Association from the only other Lay Magistrate to become President of this Association, Clare Spurgin of England who was President from 1966 to 1970. Clare had the medallion designed and presented to the Association at the Congress in Oxford in 1974 to be worn as a symbol of office by all future presidents. Gaston Fedou of France was the first president to wear it. This had added significance because while the concept and the design was English the motif derives from French history.

The motif of the medallion derives from the famous Ivory Hand in the Louvre Museum. French Kings in the XII century bore it as a sceptre to symbolise their judicial role. The hand indicated that every accused person could rely on judicial protection. Two fingers of the hand are extended upwards to indicate benediction and mercy two are lowered to indicate justice. For an Association most of whose members are judges and magistrates dealing with youth, I cannot think of a more suitable emblem.

Equally, since our daily work is concerned with offending or endangered youth, I can think of no more suitable words to keep in our minds than the words so simply depicted in our emblem – “benediction, mercy and justice”.

I had the honour to serve with Clare on the Executive of the British Juvenile and Family Court Society. A lady of great energy and expertise she had a great love for the International Association and served on its various committees for more than 30 years. She filled the role of President with distinction. A Lay Magistrate who became a great President, she is an inspiration to me.

I will wear this very beautifully designed and executed medallion with pride. It records the names of all the distinguished persons who have preceded me. So I will not forget any of them.

What are my hopes and expectations for the next four years?

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

The primary role of the IAYFJM is to support judges and magistrates in applying the rule of law in the light of international conventions and local Sate and Federal laws. To this end we will:

a) focus on the support, the maintenance, the education and the training of judges and magistrates to do their judicial job properly;

b) advance the standard of legal education internationally by all practicable means, including the inter-change of Judges, Magistrates, teachers of law and practitioners who provide professional services directly linked to youth and family justice or welfare, and the provision of advanced studies in these areas.

The IAYFJM represents worldwide efforts to deal with the protection of youth and family. To this end we will:

a) promote the administration of justice and the maintenance of the rule of law, particularly as it affects children and their families;

b) promote the protection of children’s rights;

c) further the diffusion of knowledge of laws and practices as they affect children and their families within the various countries of the world;

d) promote the development of the law affecting children and their families internationally;

e) advance the understanding and development of international law and comparative law, particularly as it affects children and their families;

f) promote uniformity internationally in these areas of law;

g) further international understanding and goodwill amongst all those who provide professional services directly linked to youth and family justice or welfare;

h) assist and cooperate with international, regional or other organisations having all or any of the above mentioned objects.

Through our Research and Development Committee we will support research which seeks to identify programme interventions that will stop the violence, abuse and neglect, exploitation and discrimination and that will mitigate the impact of those violations on children. We will:

a) identify good practice, garner, collate and disseminate information, to enable all to share in the expertise of those whose good practice has been identified;

b) support innovative approaches and provide an international view of what works well in the area of child offending and child welfare.

We will set up a communications network to:

a) facilitate the sharing of information, ideas and expertise;

b) further the diffusion of knowledge of laws and practices as they affect children and their families within the various countries of the world;

c) put all information on-line, in our three official languages, giving members access to studies, statistics, research papers, best practices and other relevant information on issues related to children, youth and family, as well as model legislation and advice on drafting-redrafting legislation;

d) make the Chronicle available on-line in English, French and Spanish.

The Association will continue to:

a) participate in the work of the various Council of Europe bodies (committees of experts, parliamentary committees, etc), in events organised by the Secretariat (general information meetings, sectoral meetings) and at meetings of interest groups of NGOs which maintain relations with the corresponding sectors of the Secretariat;

b) participate in the work of relevant UN bodies.

The above objectives cannot all be achieved with the current reliance on voluntary support. Professional secretarial backup is essential. To this end we will seek to:

a) secure a permanent office and

b) secure a permanent funding stream.

Reaching the targets outlined will require us to form partnerships with a number of organisations. I am asking you to authorise your Executive to seek to form partnerships with:

a) UNICEF;

b) IDE;

c) other groups as appropriate.

I am a great believer in devolved Government and will be attempting to have local decisions taken at local level. I have in mind to set up a number of Regional Commissioners. They will act as a link between the National Associations and the Executive. The Commissioners will support NAs in identifying training needs and will identify experts, nationally and internationally, who will be available to assist in programmes of judicial training. I will discuss the detail of this with my colleagues but will be looking to have it implemented as soon as possible. I seek your approval to carry out this programme.

Finally, I would like to thank our outgoing President for his leadership over the past four years. It has been a particularly difficult time for him. He has had to contend with a horrendous workload in his court and at times the strain has impacted adversely on his health. Indeed he has been off ill for the past few weeks. It is an indication of his commitment to this Association that he came against doctor’s advice because he felt he should be here. We appreciate what he has done and thank him for it. I hope that he is going to take things a little easier now that he is stepping down and that he will take more care of his health.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the Executive Committee for their confidence in selecting me as the official candidate for the post of President. I hope that I will be able to meet their expectations and give good stewardship over the next four years.

But, most of all, I would like to thank all of you for the confidence you have placed in me in electing me to the position of President. I will do everything I can to ensure that your confidence is well placed. I intend to give total commitment to the Association, to serve you to the extent of my ability. I do not intend to maintain the status quo. In my view, there is no such thing as standing still. If we do not move forward we move backward because the world will move forward without us. We must sail, sometimes with the wind, sometimes against the wind. But we must sail and not drift or lie at anchor.

Your Executive cannot meet the objectives I have set alone, nor the Council, nor even the General Committee. Success will only come if all members of the Association become involved in its activities. What I ask from you is that you also show commitment to the Association. We are not in this for what we can get out of it. We are not in it for the status it brings or to gain promotion in our own courts. We joined the Association so that we can help others, not to help ourselves. I remind you of the words of John F Kennedy - ask not what the Association can do for you. Ask rather what you can do for the Association.

The words of Judge Gaston Fedou, addressing the Oxford Congress in 1974, are as relevant today as they were when he spoke them:

“Let us never forget that we exist not for ourselves but for the young, for their fulfilment as individuals in the heart of the family and in society”.

Dr Willie McCarney, President

GENERAL COMMITTEE

2002 to 2006

Alejandro Molina	Argentina	Dr Melita Cavallo	Italy
Arsenio F. Mendoza	Argentina	Francesco Mazza Galanti	Italy
Monica Vazquez	Argentina	Paolo Vercellone *	Italy
Atilio Alvarez	Argentina	Tsutomu Takeuchi	Japan
Juan Carlos Fugaretta	Argentina	Denise El Murr	Lebanon
Maria Fontemachi	Argentina	Meli Silvio	Malta
Jorge Zaldarriaga *	Argentina	David Carruthers	New Zealand
B. Wynn-Mackenzie	Australia	Andrew Becroft	New Zealand
Jenny Coate	Australia	Pat Mahony	New Zealand
Renate Winter	Austria	Willie McCarney	Northern Ireland
Claudia Fenz	Austria	Waheed A Ch.	Pakistan
Paul Palkovits	Austria	Justice Herrera	Philippines
Christian Maes	Belgium	Nimfa Vilches	Philippines
Herlinda Van de Wynckel	Belgium	Teresita Silva	Philippines
Colette Somerhausen *	Belgium	HenrykaVeillard-Cybulska *	Poland
Alyrio Cavallieri	Brazil	Alfredo Barbosa *	Portugal
Rodrigo Enout	Brazil	Vasiliy Popov	Russia
A. Guimaraes de Souza	Brazil	Oleg Osheev	Russia
R. de Oliveira Andrade	Brazil	Stuart Lynch	Scotland
D. Eyike Vieux	Cameroon	May Lucia Mesenas	Singapore
Lucien Beaulieu	Canada	Mark Tay	Singapore
Oscar D’Amours	Canada	Alenka Selih *	Slovenia
Jean Trépanier	Canada	D.S. Ncapayi	South Africa
Marcel Trahan *	Canada	Ooshara Sewpaul	South Africa
Gabriela Ureta	Chile	Belinda van Heerden	South Africa
Luz Mariá Barceló	Chile	Julia Sloth-Nielsen	South Africa
Yang Chengtao	China	Julio Lopes de Oruezabal *	Spain
Shao Wenhong	China	Jan Alvå	Sweden
Chen Jianguo *	China	Norman Knut	Sweden
Carmen Palacios Serres	Columbia	Michel Lachat	Switzerland
Avril Calder	England	A.F. Comte Fontana	Switzerland
Daphne Gask *	England	Barbara Schellenberg	Switzerland
Helle Niit	Estonia	Jean Zermatten *	Switzerland
Herve Hamon	France	André Dunant *	Switzerland
Daniel Pical	France	Jameleddine Khemakem	Tunisia
Yves Lernout	France	A. Betül Onursal	Turkey
Jean-Pierre Peign *	France	Geert Cappelaere	UNICEF
Frieder Dunkel	Germany	Len Edwards	USA
Sophie Ballestrem	Germany	David Mitchell	USA
H. Schuler-Springorum *	Germany	Mike Town	USA
Jürgen Dubbers	Germany	Michael Corriero	USA
Theresia Hoyneck	Germany	Paula Hepner	USA
Corinne Dettmeijer	Holland	Edward Healey *	USA
S de Pauw Gerlings-Dährn	Holland	Blanca Rios Vidal	Venezuela
Yaap van der Goes *	Holland	M Rengel de Tundidor	Venezuela

This list comprises members of Council, honorary members, national representatives and IAYFJM representatives to the various UN and Council of Europe bodies. General Committee members are appointed, not elected

* Honorary Members

INTRODUCTION

Delegates from 30 nations assembled for the first session in the spacious facilities of the award-winning Convention Centre, close to Melbourne’s river Yarra. The contiguous South Bank area, so imaginatively and beautifully transformed from an erstwhile dubious and dingy neighbourhood, bore a certain symbolism for the delegates’ task of acquiring enhanced understanding of, and hopes for a fresh approach to the depressing complexities of youth and family issues.

For delegates arriving at the Welcome Reception on the previous evening at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House (the first home of the Australian parliament), flower-strewn steps were a poignant reminder of the host nation’s great loss of young lives in the Bali atrocity. That tragedy, and the victims of a deranged student at the city’s Monash University, were remembered. Fittingly also, during the conference, several speakers paid tribute to the traditional owners of the land, the Wurundjeri People.

An impressive cast of international speakers, eminently qualified in their various fields, gave papers on a wide range of topics, inter alia: Protection of Children’s Rights; Children’s Participation in Decision Making; Child Abuse; Child Protection and Care; Domestic and Family Violence; Specialist Courts; Assessing Criminal Responsibility and Family Group Conferencing. Given the extensive scope of the 5 day conference, the multiplicity of speakers and the variety of concurrent workshops, it would be impossible to do adequate justice to its contents within normal constraints. Instead, an eclectic distillation from the pool of miscellaneous issues must suffice.

SETTING THE SCENE

Joy Murphy Wandin, Aboriginal Elder of the Wurundjeri People, led the Indigenous Welcome with a symbolic burning of gum leaves, followed by painted warriors dancing to the accompaniment of the haunting music of the didgeridoo.

A Ministerial Address was given by the Hon. Darryl Williams, Commonwealth Attorney-General. During his robust remarks he stressed the value of initiatives like the Magellan Project, a pilot project in Victoria, heralding better outcomes for children and parents in child abuse cases through quicker decisions, less court appearances and emphasis on supportive family needs. In his concluding remarks he gave his imprimatur to the newly- published report, “ Family Law and Child Protection” with its 17 recommendations, including, foremost, the establishment of a Federal Protection Service.

The Congress theme, “Forging The Links”, inspired Judge Lucien Beaulieu (outgoing President, IAYFJM) to recall the work of the forge in his Canadian boyhood and use its imagery for the imminent heat of debate, the creation of ideas in malleable form and the production of strong chains of justice for balance and fairness in the judicial system.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

The Hon. Michael Kirby, High Court Judge, using his own sexuality as an example of having the same sex relationship for 33 years, called for gay couples to be afforded the same treatment as heterosexual couples before the law. The acceptance of sexual difference meant that gay and lesbian people were “knocking on the door” of the Family Court where they should be dealt with alongside other broken-down relationships. The issue of sexuality was not something odd and peculiar to minorities, but reached the highest constitutional offices everywhere, but in the past it had been subject to the pressure of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

His wide- ranging address touched on ambiguities in the law, particularly where a judge, confronted with a choice point, ought to be entitled to ponder on Human Rights in their global context, to assist with his final decision. (No Bill of Rights incorporated in Australian Constitution ).

He considered Family Law as occupying a very important place in the judicial system and drew attention to the 48,000 divorces annually in Australia, involving a large number of children for whom, in 84% of cases, the mother was granted custody. The issue of contact arrangements was brought into sharp focus whenever a mother decides to re-locate in such a vast country. Two examples were used to illustrate the problem. (1) a mother leaving Perth to reside with her children in Darwin. (2) an immigrant mother returning to India with her daughter.

JUDICIAL MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX CHILD ABUSE CASES.

The Hon. Justice Linda Dessau, Family Court of Australia, described the background which prompted the Magellan Project as a vehicle for the better management of serious sexual and physical abuse cases. Problems had arisen from the overlap of the Federal Family Court of Australia (FCA) and the State Juvenile Court (SJC). Family break-down(FCA) often had its origins in violence and abuse (SJC). Consequently, already vulnerable families often suffered the double jeopardy: abuse in family and abuse of duplicated systems.

To minimise harm for children and cost or delay for families, the project known as the Magellan Project was devised for early and thorough investigation of 100 new cases of serious abuse. Children had personal representatives, funded by legal aid, and cost limits were waived for parents entitled to legal aid. Encouraging results showed a reduction in:

number of hearings by almost 50% (from 5 to 3).
average time of case from 17 months to 8 months approximately.
break-down of Final Order from 37% to 5%.
cost of legal aid by 50% per family.
number of highly distressed children from 37% to 4%.

As a result, the Magellan Project will shortly be implemented in all states, with the principle of just one interview, one report per child in any case.

INITIATIVES FOR PROBLEM SOLVING.

DRUG TREATMENT COURTS.

Judge Leonard Edwards (California), spoke enthusiastically about his role in these courts which have been available from the late 1990’s for parents with serious substance abuse problems and willing to comply with strict treatment plans (including frequent random testing) over a period. It gives an opportunity to recover from substance abuse in order that they can be re-united with their children who are under the protection of the Juvenile Dependency Court. Women occupy 95% of the places. A relaxed atmosphere pervades, led by the judge in a very proactive role with a comprehensive team of social workers, attorneys for the parents, substance abuse assessors, court clerk, service providers, mental health providers, housing experts and welfare- to- work facilitators. The scheme was paying dividends with many parents receiving their graduation certificates and being re-united with their children.

(Other Drug Treatment Courts have started in Melbourne and Glasgow)

A COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO TRUANCY

Pat Harrison, Otago Youth Wellness Trust, New Zealand.

Arising from concern about serious and frequent recidivist youth offending allied to a significant increase of school truancy in Dunedin, a trust was formed, the Youth Wellness Trust, to tackle reductions in:

youth recidivist offending, truancy, unwanted pregnancies, youth suicides children taken into care and drug/alcohol abuse--- quite a challenge! A community-based group of quality staff was engaged to provide integrated services. About 300 young people, many with major educational deficits, and from highly dysfunctional backgrounds, are now being helped in the Centre and are benefiting from the range of services provided to heal and restore them from their damaged life styles to normal society.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: THE PART

Judge Michael Corriero, New York

Since 1978: children 16-18 years, accused of crime have been in the exclusive jurisdiction of adult court; children 13-15, charged with murder/ other violent crimes have been prosecuted in adult court, pursuant to the possibility of being granted “youth offender status” to avoid stigma of a criminal record; children under 16, with less serious offences prosecuted in the Family Court as juvenile delinquents.

In 1992 Youth Part was established to reduce delays, provide consistent sentencing, divert children away from costly imprisonment and reduce recidivism. At first appearance, an assessment is made of the seriousness of the charge, extent of involvement, previous criminal history and suitability for placement in an alternative to incarceration programme (ATI). In the more informal atmosphere of a Chambers Conference (within 4 weeks) the facts of the case, legal implications and disposal options are discussed. Provided the young person expresses a willingness to engage in a closely-monitored ATI, he/she may ultimately be granted probation and “youth offender” status.

YOUTH CRIME

POLICE INVOLVEMENT IN PREVENTION & DIVERSION.

Inspector Bill Mathers (Victoria Police) presented a paper on the pro-active role the police are playing in keeping young people away from continuous association with the Juvenile Justice System. On the basis of statistics, the scheme is working very well : lowest crime rates, persistent offenders only 4% of young people, 60% to 70% of those cautioned formally never re-offend (of all Australian States, per capita).

A variety of programmes, with an emphasis on early intervention, is available:

Best Start;

Newstart;

Police Schools Involvement Programme; Police Youth Corps;

Police & Citizen Youth Clubs;

Cyprass.

If a young first offender admits the crime a Formal Warning may be administered in the presence of the family (subject to the seriousness of the crime and the number of the offences) For young people with 2-3 appearances in court, Group Conferencing used with a partnership of Court, Department of Human Services, Youth Agencies and Police. This gives the judicial system an opportunity to encourage the young offender to avail of one last chance to take responsibility for his/her actions.

The police have now begun to focus on programmes for persistent offenders and young people in custody.

Inspector Mathers stressed the partnership model where police and community agencies work collaboratively to produce well co-ordinated programmes for early intervention and diversionary measures. The need to establish early indicators of trouble ahead was vital to reduce the incidence of programmes for young people when a pattern of crime has been established.

Inspector Chris Graveson, Co-ordinator, Police Youth Aid, New Zealand outlined his country’s response of police involvement. Family Group Conferencing was part of the process, not the process. Diversion was considered a real success . One-off offenders accounted for 80% of young people involved in crime. Section 208(a) states that unless public interest requires it, an alternative to crime proceedings should be sought. The police were committed to a policy of encouraging young people to respect the law, rather than a policy of enforcing the law.

The New Zealand police force had trained 170 Youth Aid Officers to participate in strategies for the prevention and diversion of youth offending.

A group known as Hip Hop Cops was engaged in an educational programme with the schools to teach young people to have more positive values about their place in society and avoid getting into trouble through violence, truancy, drugs, alcohol etc. This group (mostly of Maori origin) provided a very informative message using drama, social inter-action, and song with an emphasis on understanding youth culture. Delegates were given a highly entertaining snippet of their programme.

SEEKING ASYLUM: IMPACT ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

Paris Aristotle (Director Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture), dealt with the plight of refugees and asylum seekers (of whom an estimated 10 million are children). Internationally, the problem has become legally complex and controversial (e.g. U.K. Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and in Australia). In Australia the policy for keeping asylum seekers at bay has been to implement mandatory, non-reviewable detention for all unauthorised refugees. He reminded his audience that claiming asylum was entirely legal and that the primary tenet ought to be an orderly, humane and swift procedure for processing such requests. Some examples were given of women and children, caught up in the Afghan conflict, and having suffered horrendous physical and emotional abuse, seeking a new life away from the horrors of their homeland.

Instead of trying to overcome feelings of anxiety, fear, helplessness, shame and guilt, families had ended up with their problems perpetuated in a new scenario of remote detention centres, with razor wire walls, lacking in human services resources. Could children ever recover from such trauma? Often criminal syndicates, acting as people smugglers, had added to the families’ woes.

The distressing scene was recalled when, in a desperate protest about their fate, 221 refugees at remotest Woomera held a hunger strike for 16 days.

Paris Aristotle argued that an urgent preparedness was needed to tackle the growing complex problem to find more enduring solutions, better awareness and appreciation of the benefits of cultural difference, and jettison the current arrangements.

CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING.

Moira Rayner (formerly Director, Office of the Children’s Rights Commissioner, London.) made a cogent case for children’s real participation in decision making. She learned early in her career that parents had various and fluctuating abilities for ostensibly protecting their children’s rights and, in the case of a suicidal 15 year old girl, a variety of people (social workers, lawyers, even the magistrate) all purporting to be acting in the child’s best interests, had never taken the trouble to consult her. Leaving it to adults to determine a child’s best interests had not worked - levels of poverty, homelessness and repeated child protection scandals support the argument.

Over the last 20 years there has been greater awareness that children have rights (Art.12, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) and, as rights’ owners, are not passive participants in society. Their views ought to be taken seriously and unless they learn that participation has benefits, they will not participate as adults. Even quite young children can make informed choices (e.g. if allowed to give evidence). Moira defined participation as the right to be consulted and influence decisions affecting them. Where their wishes are not put into effect, there is a duty to explain why some other course of action is preferable.

QUOTES FROM THE CONFERENCE

You can’t talk to a child in headphones (yours or his).

For every complex problem there is a simple solution - and it’s wrong.

Family Group Conferencing: the jewel in the crown of the New Zealand Justice System.

Screenagers --- the media generation.

Dealing with drug abusers is like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today.

A lack of communications between organisations leads to an inevitable suspicion and jealous guarding of turf as well as resources.

The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only begun to emerge.

From 10 - 14 years, the community’s last best shot at preventing social problems. What shot will you fire? Make it count !

CONCLUSION

From a Northern Ireland perspective, apart from the opportunity to make new friends, two fringe benefits deserve mention:

(1) With the new Justice (N.I.) Bill approaching, it was reassuring to hear that such strategies as early intervention, diversionary programmes, interagency teams and the development of holistic supports for dysfunctional families are no mere chimera, but actually work.

(2) The privilege of seeing our own Dr Willie McCarney assume the highest office as President of the International Association of Youth and Family Judges and Magistrates - a marvellous honour for him and international recognition of his outstanding lay contribution to the judicial system.

In her Welcome Message, Judge Jennifer Coate, Chair of the Local Organising Committee, had predicted an “informative, thought provoking and challenging” programme. To a great extent the prediction held, but a better balance of listening and meaningful participation would have enhanced the Conference.

At the end of what had been an intensive period, Judge Coate, in humorous mood, with atavistic allusions, finally presented her chief organiser with her well-earned, outsized “Ticket of Leave”.

Crime committed by youth such as assaults, thefts and vandalism is expensive to victims and communities. It inflicts loss and suffering on victims. It deters civic and economic activity in the community.

If incarceration were used only where appropriate while investment in prevention for youth at risk was encouraged, the world would be safer for children.

Reducing youth crime, respecting the needs of victims, and limiting custody to where it is most needed are as important as our systems for health, education and employment. In the last forty years, we extend life expectancy, opened up education and multiplied the quantity and quality of work. Yet crime levels deteriorated as we invested more funds.

For western Europe and North America, one in four citizens 15 years and older will be victimised each year by a common crime. One in twenty will be victimised by a break-in. More than 25% of women in their life time will be assaulted by an intimate partner. Child care authorities will confirm that more than 15% of children will be abused. One in twenty children will be bullied at school each year.

Though rates of crime victimisation recorded by the police levelled out in some countries in the 1990’s, they remain at least 200% higher than in the 1960’s. Common crime today results in loss, injury and trauma equivalent to $3,000 per household or $10 billion for every 10,000,000 persons.

Responding to youth offending by adapting criminal justice procedures to youth will fail to control crime as much as those procedures are failing for adults. They will not

· decrease youth crime – occasional or persistent

· reduce the number of young persons in custody – or caught in the justice net

· reduce taxes paid for public safety and criminal justice

· avoid the costs to victims and society

Some countries have instituted strategies that affirmatively are reducing crime and using scarce resources more appropriately. Those countries use a vision for crime reduction, international scientific evidence, national operational data systems and accountability as the major levers for their success.

Much remains to be done, particularly to limit prison use. Why not apply the same controls that we have used for hospitals to limit prison use. Surely judges are as able to set priorities on prison use for the most dangerous and criminal, as doctors do for the most critical and sick. Most western democracies set and then reduced the limits on the number of persons who can be in hospital, arguing that there are:

· better or adequate treatments in the community, according to the international knowledge base

· insufficient taxes available

· doctors can set adequate priorities on whom should be hospitalised and for how long

As crime rates rose in the 1970’s and 1980’s, most western countries increased expenditures on policing, judicial and correctional programs. Yet, there is no evidence that the increased expenditures have had any impact on crime. In fact while enforcement and criminal justice expenditures doubled or more, crime rates tripled.

Decreases in rates of reporting to police and public dissatisfaction with the courts and correctional systems suggest that the public is disillusioned. Undoubtedly during this time, the quality of the personnel improved significantly, but they are not yet being used for the strategic purposes that will achieve real crime reductions.

So called crime prevention strategies are add-ons to, rather than, mainstreamed approached to crime reduction. In England, the mainstreaming of crime prevention is expected by their Prime Minister to reduce common property crime rates in half within a ten year period. In the USA, cities such as Boston, Fort Worth and Los Angeles – not just New York – have already reduced both violent and property crime by more than 50%.

Today, obsolete ways to cope with youth crime result in children and teenagers who are:

· Abused by police

· Detained excessively

· Punished in ways that violate internationally recognised norms

· Not required to repair the damage to their victims

· Unwittingly developed by the state into persistent offenders

The UN reports that 14% of government expenditures in the developing world, compared to 4% in the affluent world is allocated to police, courts, and corrections. Imagine the difference - 10% - of government resources being reallocated to health, education and services focussed on youth at risk. Imagine less crime and violence, fewer abuses by police, limited use of detention and reparative sanctions assisting victims.

Many of the causes of youth crime are well established and reaffirmed by the UN (see Waller, 2002, forthcoming). For instance, large-scale studies of youth development and victimisation confirm that crime is more likely to occur due to:

Difficulties of social development, such as the exclusion of youth from school, particularly in situations where the gap is widening gap between rich and poor
Cultural problems, such as violence in home and community or rapid urbanisation with atomization of families and communities
Increased availability of products that encourage crime, such as

Cars and consumer goods without adequate security and surveillance or
Increased access to firearms, alcohol and other drugs

The limits on traditional methods of enforcement and justice to provide protection, in part because

Society has become more faceless
Many crimes occur in intimate situations where police are not present

Further, researchers and now several prestigious commissions have confirmed that many projects that tackle risk factors reduce crime significantly (or empower victims) by:

Assisting teenagers at risk by mentoring or helping them to complete school
Working with families in difficulty to help their children or tackling bullying in schools
Assisting victims with information on how to reduce opportunities for crime and limiting accessibility to firearms
Taking care of victims, promoting community justice and encouraging reparative sanctions

For countries that are developing or in transition, these important realisations may seem beyond their reach. The International Centre for Prevention of Crime (Montreal) has brought together 100 descriptions of prevention programs to inspire action and a digest of explanations, successes and strategies. In addition, it provides some hope:

Top officials of governments are working with expert, city and intergovernmental agencies to spread the message, including:

France, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Portugal
Canada, USA, South Africa, and Province of Quebec
Crime Concern (UK), European Forum for Urban Safety, NCPC (USA)...
UN CPIC, UN Habitat, ...

Technical assistance is being provided as national governments and cities pioneer strategies that work for countries that are developing or in transition – already including:

Johannesburg, Dar-es-salaam, Bamako
South Africa, Mali, Argentina

Prestigious intergovernmental agencies such as the UN and the European Union agree that:

· Clear evidence exists for governments to invest in well planned crime prevention to reduce crime and its costs to victims and the public

· Governments at all levels are responsible to establish centres to spearhead and sustain crime prevention

· Partnerships are needed between agencies responsible for policing, justice, schools, families, private sector and others to tackle the multiple causes of crime

· Well planned crime prevention must take advantage of the international knowledge to develop the human and organisational capacity to implement successful prevention

· Crime prevention must take into account issues of gender, diversity and individual rights

· Successful improvements will require public engagement, planned change and raising the awareness of senior officials.

So community safety must be implemented with targets established for crime reductions that will be achieved within a particular timetable. Investments must be made using best value as a criterion. Capacity development is needed urgently to provide the practitioners who can make crime prevention happen. Operational data must be established. Municipalities must be encouraged to get involved.

In England, the Home Office and the Audit Commission provide extensive analysis on what is best value in crime prevention. The British national strategy illustrates how crime reduction targets and balancing tough on crime with tough on causes works. Local government strategies illustrate how police and municipal leadership can work together across a country to reduce crime and disorder.

The British Youth Justice Board illustrates the importance of having an agency outside of the traditional line agencies to succeed with reforms in policing, courts and social services. Policy makers and practitioners in England use victimisation and offender data extensively to increase good governance and operational programs. The work of Crime Concern and NACRO demonstrate how expert coaching and support can assist the rapid deployment of effective crime reduction strategies.

France brings policing and justice to the people while giving victims standing in its criminal courts. It created jobs for 20,000 social mediators to simultaneously reduce unemployment for young diverse youth – thus reducing crime - while creating a force to solve the crime problems for others. France has continued its local crime prevention contracts through an inter-ministerial agency on urban development at the same level as the heads of policing and justice agencies.

The Netherlands has successfully used cost data to reallocate funds from policing and prisons. The Netherlands has mobilised the private sector in round tables on crime prevention

It is time to develop business plans to cut rates of crime and its consequences in half within ten years:

To main stream well planned crime prevention, making use of best value when investing in preventing and responding to crime
To develop capacity to implement well planned crime prevention
To ensure basic data such as victimisation, longitudinal and offender based data and information systems to bring operational data up to international standards
To communicate to citizens what works, what is likely to work and what targets will be set to reduce crime
To balance efforts to tackle common crime, intra-familial violence and social fabric crime
To coordinate social, situational, hot spot, reparative and enforcement efforts to tackle at risk situations

For a World Fit for Children, it is important that we set positive targets:

Within 5 years:

Establish a fund within UNICEF to raise awareness on, and encourage use of, what has been proven and/or is likely to work to reduce youth crime through prevention as well as programs for reparative sanctions
Identify bench marks for

i. National responsibility centres for youth crime prevention

ii. Procedures to respect the interests of victims through reparative sanctions,

iii. Indicators of violence in schools, and

iv. Ways to measure the use and quality of detention for children

Establish national and city responsibility centres for youth crime prevention in at least 20 developing countries so that there are as many as exist today for affluent countries.

Within 10 years:

Establish national youth crime prevention agencies in 40 countries and in 200 major cities that are developing or in transition
Reduce violent deaths and injuries in schools worldwide by 50%
Complete an international awareness campaign to ensure that key policy makers and opinion leaders understand what reduces youth violence and what is acceptable in tackling it
Reduce the number of children incarcerated from the estimated 1,000,000 to 500,000

Further Information

· Aos, Steve, Polly Phipps, Robert Barnoski, Roxanne Lieb (2001) The Comparative Costs and Benefits of Programs to Reduce Crime, Olympia, Washington State: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, www.wa.gov/wsipp

· Goldblatt, P. & C. Lewis (1998) Reducing Offending: An Assessment of Research Evidence, London: Home Office, see also www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/

· International Centre for Prevention of Crime (1999) Crime Prevention Digest II: Comparative Analysis of Successful Community Safety, Directed by Irvin Waller, Written by Daniel Sansfaçon and B. Welsh. Montreal,

www.crime-prevention-intl.org

· International Centre for Prevention of Crime (1999) 100 crime prevention programs to inspire action across the world, Directed by Irvin Waller, Written by Gauthier, Lily-Ann, David Hicks et al. Montreal,

www.crime-prevention-intl.org

· Newman, Graeme ed. (1999) Global Report on Crime and Justice, New York, Oxford University Press, www.odccp.org/crime_cicp_publications.html

· Sherman W. et al. (1997) Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising. Washington, D.C.: US Department of Justice, www.ncjrs.org/works/download.htm

· United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, (2002) Crime Prevention Guidelines, New York: UN Economic and Social Council, www.odccp.org/crime_cicp_documentation.html

· US Surgeon General (2001) Juvenile Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General, www.surgeongeneral.gov

· Waller, Irvin (2002) Crime Prevention that Works, book manuscript

www.crime-prevention-intl.org

The International Centre for Prevention of Crime makes available a summary of its Digest II, the complete 100 crime prevention programs, and an annotated bibliography. The site has English and French section as well as a small Spanish section.

www.victimology.nl

The UN, the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands and the World Society of Victimology collaborate on this site to provide information on issues relating to prevention, assistance and rights for victims of crime. It provides newsflashes to enable practitioners and other experts to seek and obtain information on issues.

The conference in the Europa Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland was opened by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell who has undertaken to be the NI patron of the Society under its new name of “Children Law UK”.

His opening address stated that those professionals working with children in the legal system had a duty to ensure that the best conditions possible were afforded to children, as they are the most vulnerable members of our community and have a right to be protected. He outlined the duty of Professionals to obtain the views of children, listen to these views and then act on the information provided.

The Honourable Mr Justice Gillen, Head of the Family Division in Northern Ireland, spoke about the alarming statistics in NI around DV 11,000 children last year have been affected and these figures might only be the tip of the iceberg. Professionals need to be more aware of what domestic violence constitutes. He cited the case of Re L, where leading psychiatrists were called in to look at the effect domestic violence had had. Professionals need to question the “right” of violent parents to contact, taking into consideration the “rebuttal presumption” that residence will not be granted to a violent parent.

There is a judicial discretion to look at the whole picture with a special hearing on the issue of Domestic Violence and then a subsequent hearing on the contact issue. He believes that an experienced judiciary is the best way of guaranteeing that the best interests of the child are protected – regarding training there is merit in this being multi-disciplinary.

Assistant Chief Constable, Jim Gamble formally from NI and now Chair of the ACPO Committee on Domestic Violence asked us to look at Mitigation v Aggravation by showing us a case of Common Assault, which had been captured on Close Circuit Television (CCTV), the footage showed the man repeatedly punching his female partner on the face and body until two passers by succeeded in breaking it up. This “Common Assault” got a 3-month sentence!

The police have a duty to present the case adequately thereby getting the correct sentence. Last year there were –

3646 cases of Common Assault

533 cases of Actual Bodily Harm

64 cases of Grievous Bodily Harm

5 Deaths

before the courts all arising from Domestic Violence.

The police are probably the first professional body to visit the house and they must use this opportunity to do something constructive.

- Advise and support

- Look at the whole case (check previous history with other organisations eg RSPCA

- Examine family history

- Gather best possible verbal and photographic evidence to support the case.

Domestic violence is child abuse and child protection has to be given policing priority with enough resources put in place to aid the police and public. These victims do not make good witnesses, they have been bullied for so long that they have developed a veil of secrecy to protect their children. They need photographic evidence to support their cases. With greater training and understanding Judges and Police and other professionals within the area of child protection and child abuse can help victims so that the cycle of violence can be broken.

The children involved must not be forgotten, as they have in many cases witnessed the violence. 90% of children are in the same or next room to where the violence is taking place or have even been assaulted themselves. 79% of violent children have witnessed Domestic Violence. Statistics also show that women stay in a violent relationship for 7-12 years before getting the courage to leave, which could translate into a child’s wasted life.

Brian Dornan, Director of Social Services in the Southern Board, supported the findings of the police. 45-56% of children at risk have been physically abused in a Domestic Violence situation. The abused parent suffers fear and distrust, low self-esteem and mental health problems. They frequently blame themselves for the situation and are fearful that their children will be removed from them. Many do not have the financial or familial support to help themselves.

Angela Courtney from Women’s Aid said their 11 temporary refuges are sometimes the first place where these women can take control of their own lives. Education is the way forward and they have developed an educational package calling “Helping Hands” which has been piloted in England. It empowers children to talk about the issue of Domestic Violence using educational aids. This enables young people to converse freely about a taboo subject.

Sharon Dougherty, television presenter, gave a very powerful insight into her early life where her father inflicted humiliation to her mother over a seven year period. She said her first memory of Domestic Violence was as a child of 2 years in her mother’s arms. Her father hit her mother in the face and 40 years later she can still hear, not only the crunch as her father’s fist hit her mother’s face but the sound of the blood hitting the wall. It is still as vivid as it was then.

She endorses the “Helping Hands” pack as a tool to allow children to speak out and get help. If it had been available when she was young she knows she would not have had to endure 20+ years of silence. Her vision is that this pack will be available to all school children. It is a shame that it has been developed in Northern Ireland yet we do not have the resources to provide it to all our schools.

Sharon went on to outline research that shows that there is a direct link between learning difficulties and children who suffer Domestic Violence. How can an abused child learn to read or tell the time when they are suffering so much torment in the home environment? Schools should look further into learning difficulties and questions it’s cause. The Helping Hand pack is one of the tools, which can help teachers with the very difficult task of getting children to open up.

A clear message from the conference was that the cycle of Domestic Violence must be broken and early support given to the mothers so their children can develop normally. They must be given a voice and with a better understanding by professionals, teachers, police and the judiciary the cycle can be broken.

Every other Saturday morning, Annette and her two children sit on the bus as it crawls through clogged London streets. Sarah, who is eight, stares moodily out at the bustling streets. She resents being cooped up behind grimy, rain-streaked windows for an hour and a half when she could be with her friends. And she’s not even looking forward to the end of the journey. Meetings with her father are fraught affairs - as they are for many children in a society where domestic violence makes up at least a quarter of all reported crime.

Sarah’s dad used to come round on Saturdays to take them out. They would go to McDonald’s and sometimes, if it wasn’t raining, to the park.

But when they came back, there were always rows between her parents. On one awful occasion, Sarah heard screams, rushed into the kitchen and found her mother cowering in the corner, her hands covering her face.

At least Sarah’s five-year-old brother, Lee, seems happy enough to see his dad again, although he will be tired and fractious during the return bus journey this afternoon.

As for Annette, she dreads these fortnightly forays across town, to a contact centre miles from her home. She finds it ironic that, having ended the relationship because of concerns about the effect of violence on her children, she now has to persuade her eldest child to comply with the court order.

More than 46,000 of these contact orders are issued by British courts every year. Only 1,276 applications for paternal contact are refused - a mere 2.7% of the total. Yet this is a country where a woman is murdered by her partner or former partner every three days; where one woman in four is the victim of domestic violence at some point; where one in six applications for re-housing by local authorities comes from those fleeing violent partners; where innumerable children see or hear one parent being brutally attacked by another.

Awareness of these issues is finally bringing responses from the highest levels of government. Tony Blair, whose wife is a trustee of the domestic violence charity Refuge, has promised to put more money into safe havens for battered women and their children. Also, a new bill is promised which, among other things, would give anonymity to victims when they testify in court and would make breaking a non-molestation order a criminal rather than a civil offence.

The Lord Chancellor’s Department, meanwhile, has been digesting a report it commissioned into the safety of child contact centres. Three researchers at Warwick University, Rosemary Aris, Christine Harrison and Cathy Humphreys, found that mothers were “often very unhappy” about what they considered inadequate supervision when they took their children along to spend time with their fathers.

There were deep concerns about the threat of violence and child abduction. A third of the children interviewed shared those concerns and wanted their mothers close by. Fathers, on the other hand, were annoyed by what they considered unnecessary surveillance.

There are some 280 contact centres scattered throughout England and Wales. Often sited in day nurseries or church halls, they are intended to give fathers the opportunity to spend time with children from former relationships in a structured setting. That is the theory - but the reality can be rather different.

“We’re convinced the safety and well-being of a significant minority of women and children complying with these court orders are being compromised,” says Harrison, a lecturer in the school of health and social studies at Warwick. “Fewer than 10% of the contact centres are adequately supervised. There should be separate entrances for fathers and mothers with children, separate waiting rooms, and a higher ratio of staff to families.”

In an ideal world, she says, that supervision should come from professional staff, trained to be aware of intimidation. As it is, the centres tend to be manned by volunteers - often people with a strong belief in the nuclear family. In that respect, they reflect the overwhelming view of government and the judiciary.

“There’s great concern about levels of separation and divorce,” says Harrison. “The large number of contact orders reflects the view that fathers should stay involved with their children’s lives. But if you’re going to increase contact, what is being done to make sure that the children and their mothers are safe?”

Not enough, according to the Warwick researchers’ paper, Safety and Contact. “Over 85% of the women we talked to through contact centres had experienced domestic violence; we expected the figure to be high, but not that high,” says Harrison, who has also become conscious of the connection between domestic violence and child abuse. “In between 30% and 60% of cases, there will be a direct link,” she says. “Social workers, welfare professionals and solicitors should be asking questions about this co-existence.”

There should be questions, too, about the widespread assumption that violence ceases when a couple split up. “It doesn’t,” Harrison says. “Sometimes the threats, the intimidation and the harassment escalate.

“A solicitor told us about his concerns when relatives of one of his clients had attacked the man’s partner in a shop while her baby was in the pram. And we met a woman who turned up at a contact centre one Saturday morning shaking like a leaf. The day before, her former partner had been standing outside her home, staring through the window. Yet she’s abided by the court order and brought the children in for contact. The 12-year-old was really distressed. It turned out that this man had been harassing the family for eight years.”

No wonder the researchers, along with child psychiatrists such as Claire Sturge and Danya Glaser, have come to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about keeping fathers in contact with their children. “We came across cases where indirect contact, such as letters, would have been more appropriate,” says Harrison.

Sturge and Glaser go further. “We consider that there should be no automatic assumption that contact with a previously or currently violent parent is in a child’s interest,” they write in Contact and Domestic Violence: The Experts’ Report. “If anything, the assumption should be in the opposite direction.”

The Lord Chancellor’s Department has set up a New Labourish-sounding “safety stakeholders’ sub-group” as a result of the Warwick researchers’ report, which has been in the department’s possession for nine months. “That kind of delay is nothing unusual in these cases,” says Harrison. She believes that the commissioning of the report in the first place is a sign that the issue is being taken seriously, but it remains to be seen whether the judiciary will take heed and act upon new guidelines.

“There are some deeply entrenched attitudes and values underpinning current practice,” Harrison says. “Domestic violence has always tended to be an invisible crime.” But she does concede: “Some judges are becoming aware of the critical issues involved.”

When that awareness becomes far more widespread, there are likely to be more “no-contact” orders. Families like Annette’s may yet be spared those interminable Saturday bus journeys, filled with trepidation. As it is, she is only too aware that her ex-partner is planning to take the case back to court to ask for unsupervised contact - and that is something she dreads even more.

· Annette, Sarah and Lee are pseudonyms. Safety and Contact: an Analysis of the Role of Child Contact Centres in the Context of Domestic Violence and Child Welfare Concerns is at:

www.lcd.gov.uk/research/2002/10-02es.htm

This article first appeared in the Guardian on January 8, 2003. I am grateful to the editor for permission to reproduce it here.

Willie McCarney

Relate NI are piloting an 18-month Family Mediation Pilot Project in conjunction with two Family Proceedings Courts (Ballymena and Belfast). The Project commenced in January 2003.

In delivering the Project, Relate NI is working closely with the NI Court Service and three Health and Social Services Trusts (South & East Belfast; North & West Belfast; Homefirst) all of whom have contributed financially to the Project budget.

Family mediation offers a constructive alternative to what is often an adversarial approach to dealing with family disputes. As a result, consistent with two of the main principles of the Children [NI] Order 1995, the welfare of children can be held as paramount and parental responsibility can be encouraged.

It is estimated that around 75 cases will receive family mediation within the Pilot Project. Provided the parties are in agreement, magistrates will make referrals to Relate NI so that, during a period of adjournment of proceedings, separated parents who are in dispute over matters such as contact and residence can be assisted to reach agreement on parenting arrangements, through participation in a series of confidential sessions with a qualified family mediator.

Usually, these sessions begin with two separate intake appointments and then approximately four further joint sessions.

The parenting agreements are then brought back to the court by the parties themselves or through their legal representatives, for the Magistrate’s endorsement. Mediators and mediation practice will operate in accordance with the national standards and code of practice established by government through the UK College of Family Mediators.

The family mediation sessions are being provided on Relate NI’s neutral premises in Belfast and in Ballymena, as a key part of an impartial, independent support to parents.

Within the Pilot Project, family mediation sessions are provided free of charge at the point of delivery.

Some advantages of family mediation are that:

· A parenting agreement can be reached with the support of a skilled mediator who does not take sides.

· Conflict and acrimony between the parties can be minimised.

· Each party is respected and agreements are balanced so no one needs to be a winner or a loser.

· Parents are helped to continue to take responsibility for the upbringing of their child(ren) even though their own relationship has broken down and they live apart.

· Parents are encouraged to find new solutions to parenting arrangements through cooperative problem solving rather than dwelling on angry feelings about who may have been right or wrong in the past.

Divorce is regarded as the second most stressful life event for adults, after the death of a spouse. One of the things which makes it so stressful is prolonged disagreement about parenting and the conflict which accompanies poor communication and lack of collaboration between parents whose marriage has ended.

Research suggests that mediated settlements in family disputes are more enduring than court-adjudicated decisions and result in better immediate and long-term outcomes for children (Lindstein & Meteyard, 1996; McCarthy & Walker, 1996; Taylor, 2001; Wilson, 2002).

Moreover, it has been shown that children benefit from regular, ongoing contact with both parents (Bauserman, 2002; Home Office, 1999).

Clause 5 of the Family Law (Divorce etc.) Bill introduced in the N.I Assembly on 9 September 2002, declares ‘the court’s power in divorce ...... to adjourn proceedings for mediation’. It also confirms that ‘mediation allows parties who are definitely not going to reconcile to reach their own agreement as to the future arrangements for their children’ (ibid).

Good practice from other parts of the world affirms the value of non-judicial determination of legal issues regarding family breakdown.

In Australia, for instance, the Courts make use of mediation and conciliation counselling as their primary dispute resolution method, resulting in 95% of family law cases being satisfactorily resolved and thus not proceeding to litigation or complaints procedures.

Significantly, 21% of the Australian Court budget is designated for the provision of such services.

In the Republic of Ireland, the provision of family mediation is state-funded.

Throughout Canada there has been a proliferation of family mediation programs, both public and private in the past decade. Today, virtually every province funds and operates some form of family mediation program. These programs are often directly connected to the courts, or are community-based with links to the courts and other social services.

Family mediation is fast becoming an adjunct, or even an alternative, to court-based family justice services. It is widely promoted as a constructive, consensual and low-cost alternative to litigation.

In Northern Ireland, the Pilot Project which commenced in January 2003 seeks to demonstrate clearly the need for family mediation and intends to identify the benefits of resolving family disputes through negotiation, cooperation and agreement. It also hopes to show what works and what does not work within family mediation, which types of cases are most likely to benefit etc.

The project will be externally evaluated by the Office of Law Reform who will be carrying out research with parties, mediators, magistrates and solicitors. An end-of-project report will be produced and widely circulated in late 2004.

Family risk factors have a major effect on crime. Family based crime prevention can directly address those risk factors, with substantial success. The more risk factors they address, perhaps, the better. The earlier they start in life, it seems, the better.

Programs for infants and young children may be most cost-effective in the long run, even if they are expensive in the short run.

Combining home-visit parental support with preschool education reduces crime committed by children when they grow up.

Rigorously evaluated pilot projects with tightly controlled prevention services are consistently effective.

Most of these conclusions have been reached independently by diverse scholars from diverse disciplines (Yoshikawa, 1994; Tremblay and Craig, 1995; Hawkins, Arthur and Catalano, 1995; Crowell and Burgess, 1996; Kumpfer, Molgaard and Spoth, 1996; Wasserman and Miller, forthcoming). Given the normal disagreements among social scientists, the level of consensus about these conclusions is striking.

While serious crime is geographically concentrated in a small number of high crime communities, it is individually concentrated in families with anti-social parents, rejecting parents, parents in conflict, parents imposing inconsistent punishment, and parents who supervise their children loosely (Tremblay and Craig, 1995: 158).

Several analysts conclude that these risk factors are cumulative, and that the more of them a prevention program can address the better (Coie and Jacobs, 1993; Yoshikawa, 1994; Tremblay and Craig, 1995; Wasserman and Miller, forthcoming).

Risk Levels and Prevention Strategy

The basic structure of family-based prevention programs depends upon strategic choices with public safety, budgetary and political consequences. The basic choice is between universal and targeted programs (Institute of Medicine, 1994).

Universal programs are offered to, or even imposed upon, all families. In several European countries, for example, all families with newborn children are required to admit trained nurses to their homes to visit the baby. This program applies to everyone without regard to any risk factors.

Targeted programs are of two kinds.

One kind is “selective,” in which families (or individuals) identified as being at high risk are offered or mandated to receive a service intended to prevent the onset of harm.

The other kind of targeted program is called “indicated.” In the case of crime and delinquency, indicated programs are offered to prevent recurrence of crime by children already manifesting crime or crime risk factors.

Because the term “targeted” in crime prevention policy is increasingly unacceptable to African-Americans as too resonant of racially discriminatory practices, this report will substitute the term “focused” to denote the same concept.

The choice between universal and focused programs is complex. Focused programs may make more efficient use of scarce resources, but universal programs may attract greater resource levels per family. It may not be necessary to allocate resources equally to all families within a program. But it may well be necessary to have the program itself be universal in order to make a very high cost investment politically palatable. The failure of Head Start to obtain full funding, for example, may be linked directly to the fact that it is seen as a program for poor children, rather than for all children.

Families with high levels of crime risk factors may also be more likely to accept universal programs than focused ones. This may be particularly important for more intrusive interventions into family life, such as frequent home visitation. Any possible stigma of such intrusion may be limited by the universal character of the program.

To the extent that risk factors in some geographic areas are correlated with race, focused programs may be even more problematic. But programs applying to all children and all families avoid any implication of discrimination.

Even though this report generally concludes that crime prevention can be most effective when scarce resources are focused on concentrations of risk factors, family-based crime prevention provides an important exception. What makes sense across cities and even schools may not work at the level of family life. The state's relationship to the citizenry is most sensitive in the institutional setting of the family.

Evaluating Family-Based Crime Prevention

Scientific evaluations of family-based crime prevention programs face at least three distinctive problems, compared with other institutional settings. Perhaps foremost is the long time horizon often needed to measure the effectiveness of prevention programs. Also important is the possible variation in effectiveness by intensity or accumulation of risk factors. There are also unique problems in measuring crimes committed by family members against one another, in relation to both privacy and safety for research subjects and accuracy of measurement.

Long Time Horizon

A basic premise of developmental crime prevention is that what happens during infancy can affect the odds of crime two or three decades later. Giving this theory a fair test requires a very long time horizon. Sustaining the test over the time required creates problems of cost, management, and interpretation.

The problem of cost is not as great as it seems. Numerous birth cohort studies of delinquency have been funded intermittently over decades, keeping track of where to find the research subjects for repeated interviews and official record checks (Farrington, Ohlin and Wilson, 1987).

Cumulative Risk Factors and Contextual Data

This report's concern for the interdependency of crime prevention institutions is not widely shared in crime prevention research. Many clinic-based studies, for example, do not report precise data on the neighborhoods from which the research subjects are drawn. It is one thing to say that the children are from families on welfare or have teenage mothers. It is another thing altogether to report that 35% of the families in the sample reside in neighborhoods with adult unemployment rates in excess of 70%, and with 60% of households in the census tract below the poverty line.

PREVENTION AT HOME

Perhaps the most promising results in all areas of crime prevention are found in the evaluations of home visitation programs. While these programs are often combined with other institutional elements, such as preschool, there is a large and almost uniformly positive body of findings on this practice.

Child abuse and neglect is a risk factor for delinquency associated in one prospective study with a 50 percent increase in prevalence and a 100% increase in frequency of adolescent arrests (Widom, 1989). A study on home visitation programmes carried out by Rochester University found a 79% relative reduction (4% compared to 19%) in child abuse.

Prevention Links Between Parents And Preschool Or School

Outside the home, the preschool and the school provide major opportunities for family-based crime prevention. Many of the prevention effects associated with early infancy home visits are impossible to separate from the simultaneous provision of a strong linkage between parents and preschool. As children age, the school takes over more of the child's day, but many schools continue to seek parental involvement in reducing a child's behavioral risk factors for delinquency.

Developmentally, the family-school linkage can begin as early as infants are left in educationally enriched day care for even part of the day. For children whose parent or parents are employed, the availability of such care can be a crucial factor allowing the parents to work.

CONCLUSIONS: WHAT WORKS

· Long-term frequent home visitation combined with preschool prevents later delinquency

· Infant weekly home visitation reduces child abuse and injuries

· Family Therapy by clinical staff for delinquent and pre-delinquent youth.

Norman Humes

Incarcerate Less - Prevent More: International Evidence On Youth At Risk

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

COUNCIL MEMBERS

REPORT BY NORMAN HUMES

The Way Forward

INCARCERATE LESS - PREVENT MORE

INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE ON YOUTH AT RISK

3646 cases of Common Assault

533 cases of Actual Bodily Harm

64 cases of Grievous Bodily Harm

5 Deaths


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