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The Positive Steps Oldham 'Interventions toolkit' gained a second place award, out of over 100 entries, from the Howard League for Penal Reform in the Education, Training and Employment category this week for their outstanding work to reduce crime in the Oldham area by showing that community sentences can work, can reduce reoffending and can change lives.
Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and television personality, presented the award to Steph Bolshaw, Director of Targeted Youth Support and Head of the Oldham Youth Offending Service in a ceremony in London. The conference also heard about the future of the criminal justice system from Crispin Blunt MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice.
The community programme awards were launched in November 2005 as part of the Howard League for Penal Reform's aim of increasing public and government support for community sentences. The annual awards celebrate best practice in community sentencing and champion the cutting edge of the criminal justice system, with work in the community that challenges and changes people for the better – be it unpaid work, drug and alcohol treatment programmes, or restorative justice.
The Howard League identified outstanding community programmes that work with individuals who have committed crime. They hope that the Community Programmes Awards will not only celebrate success but also promote positive practice in the delivery of community sentences. They believe that well-resourced and well-structured programmes will raise public protection, bringing down the rate of reoffending, and repay the damage done by crime in a way which custodial sentences cannot.
Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Frances Crook, said:
"The Howard League for Penal Reform is recognising the country's most successful community programmes at our Community Sentences Cut Crime conference. This is a wonderful opportunity to promote excellence in our criminal justice system and praise the people who bring down crime in their area.
"The winners of our Community Programme Awards are beacons of best practice and a key example of how hard working professionals can succeed with those who have committed crimes and help them turn their lives around. It is by emulating examples like these that we can build an effective criminal justice system for the future." .
