Diverting young men from gangs: a qualitative evaluation

Purpose
Serious organised crime (SOC) costs the UK billions of pounds every year and is associated with significant negative health, social and well-being outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether young people can be diverted from involvement in SOC using preventive intervention approaches.

Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on data collected from semi-structured interviews with practitioners involved in a six-month intervention which specifically aimed to divert “at risk” young people away from SOC involvement.

Findings
Themes arising from the analysis are: risk and vulnerability factors associated with young people involved in organised crime; what worked well during this intervention; what outcomes, both hard and soft, were generated; as well as, the specific challenges to the success of preventive programmes’ success.

Practical implications
Overall, the study highlights the problematic nature of diverting “at risk” youths from SOC and provides recommendations for future preventive intervention work in the field of SOC. Specifically, it suggests that longer-term interventions, targeted at younger children, may generate better behavioural outcomes if they focus on building trusting relationships with credible support workers (i.e. have lived experience of SOC).

Originality/value
With a growing body of evidence suggesting that young people are being increasingly exploited for organised criminal purposes, an approach which prevents involvement in SOC makes theoretical and economic sense. However, little research has empirically tested its utility in practice. This study seeks to address this gap.