The grants were intended to be used with youths aged 13 to 17 years who were at risk of becoming involved in delinquent activities. The Youth Action Schemes aimed to foster self-esteem and social responsibility of the participants and to involve young people in the development of programs to meet their needs. Several themes emerged during the evaluation: the duration of projects and the resources available, crime reduction as an aim of youth work, interagency cooperation and community involvement, and evaluation. The findings suggest that the Youth Action Schemes, which stress local knowledge and involvement for effective crime prevention, provided an opportunity for the youth service to become more fully engaged in social crime prevention as conceived by several governmental agencies over the past decade. 21 references