Loading the policy blunderbuss: Jon Shute, Judith Aldridge and Juanjo Medina examine Coalition policy and find it wanting

Ending Gang and Youth Violence: A Cross Governmental Report including further evidence and good practice case studies (EGYV) (HM Government, 2011) describes the Coalition's attempts to develop a coordinated policy strategy to reduce gang related and more general youth violence. The report extends to 84 pages, 23 headline measures, and refers to over 60 reputedly relevant initiatives. Amidst some refreshingly honest admissions ('We understand that you can't arrest your way out of the problem'), significant emphases are placed on locally coordinated multi-agency action, and on an articulated strategy of family level prevention, individual intervention and police suppression. While the report evidences much good-will, good practice and hard work, at least three core problems relating to expertise, evidence and moral vision critically undermine its strategic coherence; and we contend that the measures flowing from it will, at best, produce weak evidence of no overall effect, and at worst, prove counter-productive. © 2012 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.