How the West Midlands Police are taking an innovative approach in dealing with football offenders

Behaviour at football in the Birmingham area has come under the spotlight this week, but West Midlands Police have been praised for their innovative approach to young offenders.

Rather than throwing Football Banning Orders at every youngster who misbehaves at football, the WMP Football Unit, through their ‘Onside Project’, wants to rehabilitate them instead. It is a form of restorative justice, focusing on education and encouraging offenders not to repeat their mistakes.

Less than three years into the programme, it has already proven markedly successful, with only one re-offender of the 76 youngsters to go through it. It has been praised by bodies such as the Football Supports Federation, and other police forces have sought to learn from its work.

The project grows out of the fact that the WMP Football Unit have a busy patch, overseeing Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Coventry City and Walsall. And with clubs with such passionate support, that can sometimes spill over, as we saw at St Andrew’s on Sunday afternoon. But the challenge for the police is to make sure that youngsters who offend are not necessarily tarred for life.

“We are trying not to criminalise a generation,” says Inspector Andy Bridgewater, head of the WMP’s Football Unit. “We offer offenders the opportunity for re-education rather than a Football Banning Order. It’s a conditional caution, a form of restorative justice.”

So rather being simply giving out banning orders, the ‘Onside Project’ gives young football offenders a five-week programme, in which they speak to police officers, football officials, safety officers, as well as education about discrimination and drugs, and the damage their actions can do. All of them are seen by WMP as being “on the cusp of being involved with anti-social behaviour” which is why rehabilitation is so important.

The most important person who speaks to the youngsters on the project is Alison Cope, whose son Joshua was stabbed to death, and who is now an anti-knife crime campaigner. She speaks in three schools a day, 3000 pupils a week, and she tells his story, and why ever choice that young people make will have consequences, good or bad. “This is the third year now of the project,” Cope tells The Independent.

“It’s about not just criminalising young people, but educating them. Giving them an opportunity rather than just giving them a conviction. That’s why I support it.”

“The bottom line is that every choice you make has a consequence. And how one choice led to my son losing his life. Josh was getting into trouble, doing things that he should not, very similar to the young men I speak to with this project. And how with support and with guidance he turned it around. Choices always have consequences, whether good or bad.”

The story of Alison and Josh can remind youngsters of the potentially tragic consequences of their behaviour, and the importance of making good decisions.

“All the young men sitting in front of me are usually sitting with their parents. When I said that my son got into trouble, pulled it round and he was taken from me, it makes them look at their parents in different way. They realise that choices they make could ruin their future and take them away from their parents. They really get it, that it’s really not worth it. This is a really good project for that.”

“So if you make a bad choice, you see the person sitting next to you, you can say goodbye to them for a long time. So if you run onto a football pitch, if you kick someone in the head, if you stamp on someone at a football match and they died, you could say goodbye to the person sitting next you. And they think, ‘no, I am never doing that again.”

That is borne out by the fact that there has only been one re-offender among the 76 to go through the programme. “This brings it home,” Cope says. “They’re very, very receptive.”