Campaigners angry as independent study backing boot camp ends

A NEW study which could have secured the future of a boot camp for young offenders, closed by the Scottish Executive last week, has been scrapped just weeks before its findings were due to be published.

Campaigners are demanding to know whether ministers were aware of the independent research on the Airborne Initiative before they took the decision to shut it down. Eleven of the country’s most troubled young men are now back on the streets, following the Executive’s decision to axe the rehabilitation unit which housed them.

Last week the Executive withdrew almost 600,000 of funding from the project at Braidwood House in Lanarkshire, forcing it to close with the loss of 26 jobs.

Ministers insisted the centre had "failed to perform", but insiders claim the research could have demonstrated the success of the course in rehabilitating recruits.

"Officials knew about the research ... the question is whether ministers knew," said an insider. "Last June, officials said Airborne was in great shape and it was getting better. This research would have proved, one way or the other, the efficiency of the course."

Criminal justice sources say the report would have proved uncomfortable reading for ministers who were determined to close the facility. The academic conducting the research, Professor Sheila Bird, a senior statistician at the Medical Research Council and visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde, said she was disappointed that the study had been halted. She was expected to publish the work in the spring.

She said: "Now that Airborne has been disbanded, I am in a quandary as to whether we can take this forward. The timing is very frustrating."

While the Executive complained that Airborne was not providing value for money, Professor Bird referred to the "price of re-offending" for society, and said drug addicts cost the taxpayer a fortune by stealing 35,000 worth of goods every year to feed their habits.

She added: "Drug users can spend 300 a week on heroin and they steal 750 a week. It costs society 35,000 every year for one injector. If you can prevent one person from injecting for ten years, you would be looking at a considerable saving. This research has massive implications for the criminal justice system and in terms of public health. You don’t know whether Airborne is effective or not, and the only way to find out is to conduct a study."

Dozens of youngsters have benefited from the Airborne Initiative. Critics believe the project was scrapped after government ministers watched an embarrassing BBC documentary about Airborne, which showed inmates taking drugs and absconding.

In September, viewers watched Chancers, a provocative programme which sent shockwaves through the Executive. Senior figures at the Airborne charity were summoned before ministers to explain the documentary, which, unfortunately for Jack McConnell, the First Minister, coincided with his campaign to get tough on youth crime.

Hugh Henry, the deputy justice minister, said the end to funding for the Airborne Initiative was taken in the light of "a body of evidence" collected from evaluation and inspection reports. Critics believe that only an independent study would have provided the answers.

The Executive was accused of negligence, given the high risk of the inmates re-offending on their release.

Last night a spokesman for the Executive said: "The Executive was not formally informed of the commission of this work, and of any planned date of its completion. This was not used in making the decision to close Airborne."