The Times Crime and Justice Commission has today (14 April 2025) launched its report examining policing and criminal justice across the UK, alongside making a series of recommendations.
Junior Smart from St Giles gave evidence to the Commission as part of its analysis of knife crime. Junior, who developed our work supporting young people upon his release from prison in 2006, highlighted the human impact behind the headline statistics:
“We have so many young people who are drawn into stuff that they don’t understand and end up having to carry out criminal acts in order to bring a bit of money in, but more times than not they’re trapped, they’re caught by the group,”
 – Junior Smart, St Giles SOS Founder (quoted on page 12 of the report).
The report highlights St Giles’s partnership work with St Barts NHS Trust in the Royal London Hospital supporting young people who are admitted because of violence-related injuries. In a focus on the work of Trauma Surgeon Martin Griffiths, who engaged St Giles to establish the project in 2015, the report highlights the reduction in re-admission rates the project has seen and describes it as one of “the models that point the way forward and should be expanded” (page 56).
The current prisons crisis is covered in the report and calls for an increased focus on rehabilitation to help ease overcrowding in prisons and reduce re-offending. St Giles runs programmes in prison to provide peer training and support, helping people in custody gain skills and qualifications to increase their employability after prison and help others with advice and guidance services.