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As usual Frances writes with both common sense and humane understanding. The ASBO legislation is a dreadful example of what happens when you focus on punishment instead of looking at the social causes of anti-social behaviour. I've done resarch on this. See:

https://www.thejusticegap.com/anti-social-behaviour-law-punishing-the-poor-and-vulnerable

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UK has hope with success of spreading violence reduction units across 20 regions and proving success with evaluation, 10 million pounds a year on Youth Endowment Fund, and PM commitment to reduce knife crime by 50% within a decade. Needs to reinvest to scale in Youth Inclusion Projects to be better than proposed youth programs from Home Secretary in order to get results within a year or two.

Evidence is clear that most effective, cost efficient, victim and youth friendly way to reduce prison population in short term is to invest significantly more in what provides hope (see above and Science and Secrets of Ending Violent Crime https://bit.ly/2lPSAnx). Prison minister needs to become advocate for stopping violent crime before it happens and not only after.

Both A and E, police and courts need to provide data for epidemiological analysis as in Glasgow and Cardiff. YEF must get better at facilitating this and developing planners for VRUs with awareness of its proven programs and how to sell cost effective investments in early and up stream prevention to decision makers. (aslo see Youtube bit.ly/WallerCrime|

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