Young Offenders Clean Up Their Act

Young offenders are key players in an innovative project between Buckinghamshire County Council and the Youth Offending Service, which helps clear graffiti from bridges and subways.

Under 18's who have been involved in vandalism are offered 'reparation work' - scrubbing off graffiti, as part of their work with the Youth Offending Service. So far, areas in Aylesbury and High Wycombe have been cleaned, but the plan is to take it across other areas of Buckinghamshire.

The project came about from some creative problem-solving by Michael Box, a technician with the County Council.

"We have virtually no budget for graffiti cleaning bridges and subways, and seeing these public places covered in tags does upset members of the public. I was trying to work out how to overcome this when I had a chance conversation with a friend, who works with the young offending service in another part of the country, who spoke about having difficulty finding schemes to get the youngsters involved in. It just seemed obvious, you could solve both problems by putting them together!" said Michael.

In collaboration with the YOS team, the scheme took a while to set up but has now run for about a year with great success. It even brought Michael some personal success - he won the County Council's Innovation Achieving Top Performance award earlier this year.

The young people are supplied with non-toxic cleaning kits, - and work in very small teams under close supervision. The project was given a much-appreciated kick-start by contract company, Community Clean, which donated about £150 worth of the cleaning kits - known as Graffiti Response Kits.

Val Letheren, Buckinghamshire's Cabinet Member for Transportation, said: "Creative ways of solving problems is what has made Buckinghamshire a nationally-acclaimed transportation authority. We are often faced with tough decisions, and this project provides an excellent way of cleaning graffiti from the county's bridges and subways at minimum cost to the public.

"The work we are doing with the Youth Offending Service is a realistic and workable solution to the problem of graffiti. It's a win-win for everyone involved and I'm delighted that the team is planning to build on the scheme's success. We have about 27 subways in the County, so there will be no shortage of opportunities!"

Pauline Camilleri, Buckinghamshire Youth Offending Service Manager, said "Community Reparation work is a fundamental tool in making sure young people who offend understand there are consequences for their behaviour and preventing them from re offending. We often have difficulties finding suitable community reparation projects or placements which will take our young people. This project has been exceptional, it has provided the young people with work which has a direct impact on improving the quality of the environment for those who use the facilities or live near by. More importantly it has also helped local people feel safer about using the subway areas. The project is also teaching young people important lessons about citizenship and how they can help their local community practically. We have had youngsters returning from site very upset after discovering some of their hard work has been re "tagged" or vandalised again, which demonstrates how much the young people have taken pride in what they are doing, and have also learnt first hand how victims and communities feel when it happens to them."

This news release was originally released by Buckinghamshire County Council.