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A new youth charity has called for greater support for 18-25-year olds, claiming that services for the group are too fragmented.

Catch 22, formerly Rainer Crime Concern, warned that young adult offenders and care leavers lacked adequate housing, education and employment support leaving many in a "cycle of crime."

Chief executive Joyce Moseley said the charity, that relaunched today, would focus on the group as part of its new programme of work for the coming year.

The formerly seperate charities Rainer and Crime Concern merged in April and now have a combined budget of £45m a year.

Moseley said the charity's new name, Catch 22, reflected the situation of half a million young people who were "trapped in no-win situations" including those expelled from school, care leavers and teenagers with drug or alcohol problems.

"We particularly want to examine ways of making services more accountable for 18 to 25-year-olds and improve things locally for this group in communities and also in custody. Many young people serving short sentences come out to find no one is responsible for helping their resettlement, and go on to re-offend," she said.

She also pledged to build on the charity's existing work with 34,000 young people across more than 100 communities, including two government-funded intensive intervention projects to support young people at risk.

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