Crime
Participation in the arts can offer a wide range of positive results and benefits to those caught in the cycle of offending:
- Opportunity to use time constructively
- Channel energies in a positive way
- Develop self-awareness and understanding and achieve a sense of self-worth
- Enable collaborative working and the need to respect the work of others
- The development of real skills in which pride can be taken
- A catalyst to find a route back into education if they have poor basic and work skills
- Find a way into employment
Arts Council England has a strategic partnership with the Youth Justice Board to promote the role of the arts in preventing offending and to demonstrate the value of the arts as a way of reconnecting young people experiencing, or at risk from, exclusion from mainstream education and training.
The strategy is aimed at those aged 14 – 18 and is jointly funding by the Department for Education and Skills, the Youth Justice Board and Arts Council England.
Arts activities are considered to have a range of benefits, from increased self-confidence to transferable skills, which can help divert people away from pathways to crime or break the cycle of re-offending. Doing the Arts Justice, A Review of Research Literature, Practice and Theory was commissioned by DCMS, the Department for Education and Skills, and Arts Council England to provide a clear account of the current evidence and theory base for the arts in the criminal justice sector - a first stage in strengthening the evidence base for the effectiveness of the arts within criminal justice.
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