Inventing our future Collective action for a sustainable economy

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Chapter 2 – An overview of social exclusion
on crime reduction. To be effective these will need to be cross-cutting, covering key issues such as housing,
skills development and employment. According to a report by the Home Office (Tackling Drugs. Changing
Lives: turning strategy into reality, 2007), for every £1 spent on treatment, at least £9.50 is saved in crime
and health costs.
Prisoners have multiple needs, including learning and physical disabilities. At any one time there are over
16,000 adults, young offenders and juveniles from the East of England in prisons (Criminogenic Needs,
National Offender Management Service Offender Assessment System – NOMS OASys, 2007).
Of these:
• 33% will lose their tenancy before release
• 72% will experience mental health problems (at least two disorders)
• 82% will have worse writing skills than an 11-year-old
• 20% will have attempted suicide in the past
• 25% will have a drugs misuse problem (highest in Norfolk and Bedford)
• 45% will have an alcohol misuse problem (highest in Suffolk).
(Criminogenic Needs, NOMS OASys, 2007)
There are two conclusions to draw from these statistics:
• significant numbers of people using social support services will have been in the hands of criminal justice
agencies at some point
• those clients will have multiple problems and therefore will need to engage with multiple agencies.
If those agencies work in isolation, they will fail to take into account actions by other services that will
affect their delivery of support. For example, a community-based education programme is likely to fail
if the offender has nowhere to live after prison.
v) Health
Social exclusion and health inequalities, which persist within the region, have many of the same root causes.
Elements of social exclusion such as low income, unemployment and lack of social support and networks
are also strong determinants of poor health. Socially excluded people and communities are likely to be less
healthy than their socially included counterparts. Preventing deprivation and social exclusion will therefore
impact positively on health and health inequalities in the region.
Although the Index of Multiple Deprivation score for the whole of the East of England is lower than the
England average, there is wide variation within the region, from the least deprived Hertfordshire at 6.3
to the most deprived, Norwich at 28.3. There is strong evidence that increasing levels of deprivation
and social exclusion are associated with decreasing levels of life expectancy in both men and women.
Even though overall life expectancy in the region is higher than the national average, there are obvious
inequalities within the region. For example, life expectancy in Fenland and Luton is approximately four
years lower than in South Cambridgeshire, for both men and women.