Kirby, Stuart

Middleham, Neil

English

Lancaster E-Prints

Community Safety Journal • Volume 4 Issue 4 • October 2005 © Pavilion10Reducingmisery andsaving money –how partnerscan make adifference inreducing theincidence ofyoungrunawaysABSTRACTThis article describes a practice initiative to reduce the incidenceof young people running away from home or care. Suchindividuals are at risk of exploitation, offending and victimisation.The cost of dealing with runaways is also assessed. Partnershipinitiatives are described that achieved significant reductions in thenumber of running away incidents and cost savings.Although issues surrounding young runaways have been routinely reportedthese have rarely captured the misery or scale of the problem. For a numberof years the government have explicitly voiced their intention to makerunning away less likely and to ensure the runaways’ needs are safely met(Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), 2002). However, although the gap betweenaspiration and implementation can be immense, this paper argues that aclear moral and financial case exists for public and private agencies toprioritise these issues and by working together, such incidents can bereduced significantly. It is perhaps the moral issues surrounding young runaways that havebeen most widely publicised. The Social Exclusion Unit report (SEU, 2002)clearly articulated the vulnerability of those who run away from home. Suchyoung people were more likely than peers to have serious problems withalcohol and illegal drugs, be more likely to get in trouble with the police,and possess a criminal conviction. Parents of such children are three timesmore likely to be concerned that their child is stealing, indeed nearly half ofall sentenced prisoners report having run away as children. The SEU reportover 5000 young people every year surviving on the streets through stealing,drug dealing or prostitution. Similarly with a quarter of all runawayssleeping in unsafe places it is not surprising they are equally likely tobecome victims as offenders. Evidence shows they are more likely to bephysically or sexually assaulted and whereas homicide makes theheadlines, road death or suicide is not uncommon. The level of misery for repeat young runaways is immeasurable. Whilstmissing, they can be sexually exploited, lured into prostitution or substanceabuse or become victims of crime. As a consequence they engage inbehaviour, which will, in effect, ruin their life chances.The financial perspective is also stark. The infrastructure costs inproviding public, private and voluntary agencies with the capacity andmissingfromhomeStuart KirbyDetective ChiefSuperintendent Neil MiddlehamInspectorLancashire ConstabularyKEY WORDSmissingyoung peoplecarevulnerability11Reducing misery and saving money – how partners can make a difference in reducing the incidence of young runawaysCommunity Safety Journal • Volume 4 Issue 4 • October 2005 © Pavilioncapability to react to such issues isimmense. Although the actualprevalence of young runaways hasbeen difficult to pinpoint due to thelack of accurate record keeping, theSocial Exclusion Unit state thatevery year approximately 1 in 9children under the age of 16 runaway from home or care overnight.A study reported this year by TheChildren’s Society within SouthYorkshire, which interviewed 2000young people found one in tenadmitted running away at somestage in their life, only two thirds ofsuch incidents being reported to thepolice. However, there is evidence tosuggest that these figures areconservative. The LancashireConstabulary is one of 43 policeforces in England & Wales andcovers a population of 1.4m mainlywithin the conurbations of Preston,Lancaster, Blackburn, Burnley andBlackpool. It borders themetropolitan areas of Merseyside toits south and Greater Manchester tothe east. During 2003 theConstabulary placed all reports ofmissing people on a computerisedsystem, which allowed subsequentanalysis. The Constabularydiscovered that approximately 9000people were reported as missing,77% of whom were below 18 yearsof age. Lancashire Police also found thatapproximately 25% of thosereported missing were locatedalmost immediately, however forthe remaining 6000 a significantinvestigation takes place. Findingsomeone who wishes to evadediscovery requires considerableresources and meticulous recordkeeping is also necessary to evadeduplication of effort and deal withaccountability requirements.Actions that are routinely takengenerally involve: • dealing with the initial callappropriately • visiting the scene and confirmingthat the missing person is nothiding or injured within theconfines of the building orgrounds• obtaining a recent photograph ofthe missing person and possiblyarranging publication• checking relevant systems forinformation about the missingperson• conducting a detailed riskassessment of the case• check addresses the person mayhave fled to • possibly make house-to-houseenquiries• possibly notifying local hospitals,employers, schools, local taxifirms, CCTV operators • follow up leads from diaries,internet, email and mobilephones• when appropriate monitorfinancial transactions• become involved in searches,sometimes involving air supportor other specialist land and watersearch teams.Lancashire Police contend that eachcase involves on average 20separate tasks, costingapproximately £1000 inopportunity costs per case, or £6million per year. This figure is asmall percentage of actual costs. Forinstance it does not include theadditional work resulting from themissing person being involved as avictim or offender. Neither does itaccount for the effort of otheragencies: social services in terms ofsupport; health services in relationto treatment for assaults, sexuallytransmitted diseases or drug abuse;or of course for the later burden onpublic services such as probationand the prisons. A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH TOREDUCING THE INCIDENCE OFREPEAT RUNAWAYSAs with many other aspects ofhuman behaviour, young runawaysshow patterns in their activities.Analysis of the Lancashire datamissing from home“WHILST MISSING, THEYCAN BE SEXUALLYEXPLOITED, LURED INTOPROSTITUTION ORSUBSTANCE ABUSE ORBECOME VICTIMS OFCRIME.”12 Community Safety Journal • Volume 4 Issue 4 • October 2005 © Pavilionshowed a significant number ofprolific runaways. One youngperson was reported missing 78times in a year and during 2004over 330 young runaways wentmissing on more than 3 occasions.Of these 81% emanated from careestablishments such as localauthority or private children’shomes. Indeed during 2004 the 6 mostprolific runaways generated:• 201 missing from homeinvestigations• 78 arrests • 60 detected crimes• 9 incidents of the young runawaybeing the victim of violent crime• numerous other incidents of therunaway being involved in drugs,sexual exploitation and firearmsincidents. The analysis also corroborated otherresearch in showing how ‘push’ and‘pull’ factors aggravated theproblem. A push factor is onewhere an issue at the person’s homeis the root cause of thedisappearance eg, the child is beingbullied. Conversely a pull factor issomething that lures the child awayfrom his or her home, for examplea child in care who misses therelationship (however abusive) of aparent or relative. By focusing onthese areas of predictabilitysignificant reductions in runningaway may be possible. Although some would perceivethe police solely as crime fighters,traditionally crime accounts for onlya quarter of calls received from thepublic, who require assistance on adiverse range of issues, includingmissing persons. Since the advent ofthe Crime and Disorder Act publicagencies have been encouraged tolook more widely at opportunitiesto enhance community safetythrough joined-up approaches.Most recently the definitivegovernment document Every ChildMatters has identified the positiveoutcomes it desires for youngpeople covering the areas of health,safety, achievement, contributionand economic well-being. It isapparent that young runaways arethe antithesis of these aspirationsand it is incumbent on agenciessuch as education, police, health,social services, and employment topro-actively intervene. Whereas thepolice may not feel they haveparticular influence on theunderlying causes they are a criticalpartner as not only do theycurrently pick up the burden ofreacting to these issues they haveconsiderable knowledge of thechildren and areas they frequent. The initiative in Lancashire hasshown that each agency canimprove their response, however ithas also shown that much biggerrewards are available for thoseagencies that work together. Eightmain areas of practice haveevolved, which are:• formal acknowledgement thatthe responsibility for a missingperson is shared between thecare establishment and thepolice • clear information-sharingprotocols between the policeand care establishments• the provision of a police liaisonofficer to work in partnershipwith each care establishment inan effort to achieve thereductions• prior to placements, riskassessments are conductedconcerning the likelihood of theindividual going missing so thatpro-active preventative measurescan be applied • graded response beingimplemented so that carers areencouraged to act in the sameway as responsible parentswould and where appropriate(such as the child staying outlate, rather than running away)attempt to find the missingperson themselves• return interviews to beconducted, ideally by anindependent member of staff, forthe purpose of preventing afuture reoccurrence• as the frequency of a person’smissing episodes increase, theinterventions to be conducted atan increasingly senior level byboth police and partners• the implementation of a multiagency performancemissing from homeReducing misery and saving money – how partners can make a difference in reducing the incidence of young runaways13Reducing misery and saving money – how partners can make a difference in reducing the incidence of young runawaysCommunity Safety Journal • Volume 4 Issue 4 • October 2005 © Pavilionmanagement framework, whichreceives and discussesinformation on missing fromhomes, specifically repeatindividuals and locations, on aquarterly basis. The philosophy is not to condonethe child’s behaviour but tounderstand and prevent futureoccurrences. Each individual caseneeds its own problem solvingapproach and practitioners havebeen amazed at the success ofsome simple partnershipinterventions. These have involved:• short-term placements outsidethe area to break the ‘missing’habit and to remove youngpeople from ‘pull’ factors • field work interventions such asasking the field social worker toassist with the missing personsfamily if they are repeatedlyrunning to family members• occasionally the police warn oract against those harbouring themissing person or enticing theminto illegal activities• rewarding young people withdiversionary activities as anincentive for not going missing• administering a simple policewarning or on other occasionsnegotiating acceptable behaviourcontracts • working on situational factorssuch as the design of locations orsurroundings that often facilitatesomeone disappearing withoutnotice • identifying and addressing ‘pushfactors’. In the first year of the initiative amulti-agency partnership in onepolicing area reduced the incidenceof frequent young runaway cases by32%, whilst the rest of theConstabulary area rose by 7.5%. Inthe second year reports of frequentrunaways have so far reduced by afurther 18%. Following the successof the pilot all agencies agreed tosupport the initiative, which wascommenced in January 2005. In thefirst quarter the Lancashire area sawa 27% reduction of frequent youngrunaways (from 683 cases to 497).If results are sustained at this levelfor the Constabulary alone it willmean efficiency savings of£873,000 on the costs of repeatingrepeat cases. However the real benefits mustbe in the lives of the vulnerableyoung people as underneath all thestatistics are individual stories. Oneof the many successes involves two13-year-old girls who had beenmissing from care a total of 56times. They had come to the noticeof police as they were involved inprostitution drugs and crime in aneighbouring red light district. Anintervention was made thatinvolved police and social servicesand resulted in a short-termplacement outside Lancashire tobreak the ‘missing’ habit and to splitthe girls up. They were then givenseparate placements in differentcare homes, one returning to ahome within Lancashire. Staffcontinued to work with them. Themissing episodes have stopped andtheir carers report no furtherproblems. The girl’s futures arecertainly looking brighter.ReferenceSocial Exclusion Unit (2002) YoungRunaways. London: Social ExclusionUnit. Available from:www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk(accessed June 2005).missing from home

Social Exclusion Unit (2002) Young Runaways. London: Social Exclusion Unit. Available from: www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk (accessed

Reducing misery and saving money : how partners can make a difference in reducing the incidence of young runaways

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Reducing misery and saving money : how partners can make a difference in reducing the incidence of young runaways

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