Boris Johnson to stop youth re-offending

The title says it. And to elaborate, Boris Johnson has declared that he will help put a stop to youth re-offending in London, with a £3.5 million fund. The money is portion of £10 million belonging to the European Social Fund, which is aimed at helping vulnerable youngsters.

It is planned, that after young offenders are released they will be assigned a mentor to help them for at least three years. I think that the mentors will be able to serve as good role models, good advisors and listeners, and perhaps be similar to what a counselor or a life coach can provide. It was just the other day, I was thinking if more people had counseling or life coaching sessions, the world would be a better place. There should be more mentoring offered because it would help solve a lot of issues and help people progress.

Boris has commented that criminals should pay for their crimes but that they should also be motivated in to looking for employment and education once they are released instead of returning to committing crime. Boris further commented that the pilot prison project he delivered had shown promising results. The pilot prison project was carried out at Feltham Young Offender Institution and resulted in re-offending being reduced greatly.

Hopefully when the mentoring system is in full swing it will encourage young offenders to not re-offend, and instead result in them choosing to do something positive with their lives. A lot of the time people are so focused on punishment and it’s right that people should be punished for committing crimes, but there should also be focus on solutions to prevent re-offending.

I’m positive that the mentoring will work and reduce re-offending. Percentage rates for re-offending are apparently high; I’m looking forward to seeing the results in the future once the mentoring system is put in practice.