Cutbacks in local authority spending have resulted in a decline in youth projects in general. Attempts to reduce juvenile delinquency using sports and recreational activities tend to be small-scale and often haphazard. In addition, there has been a trend away from the idea of youth workers as recreation providers and toward working with young people on relevant social and political issues. Police-led youth initiatives are often controversial due, in part, to the mood of suspicion and distrust that prevails between inner city youth and the police. Nonetheless, there is a long tradition of voluntary involvement by individual police officers in youth organizations, often as sports instructors. Sport and recreational activities are incorporated in many intermediate treatment and probation projects for youth. Most community-based programs involving outdoor activities are small-scale with a strong element of voluntary and charitable support. Evidence proving the effectiveness of sports in reducing or changing patterns of recidivism is sparse, but there is no evidence that sports participation makes juvenile delinquency worse. A balanced youth policy should integrate sport and recreational elements into a broad program directed at issues of concern to lower class youth as a whole, such as improving educational and employment opportunities and enhancing the inner city environment itself. Appendixes note specific sports projects. 58 notes