De Viggiani, N., Daykin, N., Moriarty, Y. and Pilkington, P. and ...

engagement, communication skills, awareness of future educational opportunities, improved teamworking
skills, and development of lyric-writing and performance skills (Smith 2010).
The end goal of music making with young people is not necessarily a product, since process issues
and skills development are key to successful outcomes (Smith 2009). However, many music projects
have a strong emphasis on outputs such as recordings and performances (Smith 2010; Goddard
2006; Eastburn 2003). CD production is often reported as a powerful incentive for young people to
take part. An important priority for offender management commissioners is to be able to support
programmes that have measurable impact in terms of reducing re-offending, whilst also reaching a
large proportion of the “at risk” population. SPLASH Extra was one such initiative, organised by the
Youth Justice Board in 2002 as a national street crime initiative. While it was not exclusively music
orientated, it delivered around 300 combined arts-based activity projects during the summer of
2003 to approximately 90,000 young people in areas perceived to have high rates of crime, street
violence and antisocial behaviour. The YJB considered this project successful because it engaged
almost double its target number, involved activities that addressed criminogenic risk factors and
demonstrated measurable impacts on reducing crime within some of the target areas (Shah and
Clegg 2003).
3.3 MEASURING OUTCOMES: KEY CHALLENGES AND DEVELOPMENTS
While arts programmes have been extensively used across the youth and criminal justice sectors for
many years, and there is much support for their use in rehabilitating those who are serving
sentences or who are identified at risk of offending, there is a dearth of good research evidence
that examines the effects of such interventions (ACE 2005a; NAO 2010).
As the arts sector has developed within the last 10-15 years, several umbrella organisations have
begun to support and disseminate evidence on the use of music within the youth justice sector.
Between 2002 and 2007, the Unit for Arts and Offenders, subsequently the Anne Peaker Centre for
Criminal Justice, published information, evaluation and research on prison arts projects across the
UK, and contributed to establishment of the European Prison Arts Network (PAN) supported by the
EU Commission’s Socrates Program. The development of the evidence base in the UK has been
supported with the establishment of the Arts Alliance, which is managed by CLINKS 2 . The Alliance
promotes and disseminates research and evaluation of projects undertaken within justice settings
and hosts an online Evidence Library that includes projects covering the range of art forms including
theatre, dance, creative writing and music (Ellis and Gregory 2011; McLewin 2011).
2 CLINKS is a network organization, funded by a consortium of charitable trusts, Arts Council England, the
Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the
National Offender Management Service, that supports, represents and campaigns for Third Sector
organisations working with people in the criminal and youth justice systems.
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