Youth Justice
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
House of Commons Justice Committee Youth Justice Seventh Report of Session 2012–13 Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/justicecttee Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 26 February 2013 HC 339 Published on 14 March 2013 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £22.00 The Justice Committee The Justice Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Ministry of Justice and its associated public bodies (including the work of staff provided for the administrative work of courts and tribunals, but excluding consideration of individual cases and appointments, and excluding the work of the Scotland and Wales Offices and of the Advocate General for Scotland); and administration and expenditure of the Attorney General's Office, the Treasury Solicitor's Department, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Serious Fraud Office (but excluding individual cases and appointments and advice given within government by Law Officers). Current membership Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Chair) Steve Brine (Conservative, Winchester) Rehman Chishti (Conservative, Gillingham and Rainham) Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North) Nick de Bois (Conservative, Enfield North) Gareth Johnson (Conservative, Dartford) Rt Hon Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd) Andy McDonald (Labour, Middlesbrough) Seema Malhotra (Labour/Co-operative, Feltham and Heston) Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South East) Graham Stringer (Labour, Blackley and Broughton) Mike Weatherley (Conservative, Hove) The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament: Mr Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon); Christopher Evans (Labour/Co-operative, Islwyn); Mrs Helen Grant (Conservative, Maidstone and The Weald); Ben Gummer (Conservative, Ipswich); Mrs Siân C James (Labour, Swansea East); Jessica Lee (Conservative, Erewash); Robert Neill (Conservative, Bromley and Chislehurst); Claire Perry (Conservative, Devizes); Mrs Linda Riordan (Labour/Co-operative, Halifax), Anna Soubry (Conservative, Broxtowe); Elizabeth Truss (Conservative, South West Norfolk) and Karl Turner (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East). Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at www.parliament.uk/justicecttee. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Nick Walker (Clerk), Sarah Petit (Second Clerk), Gemma Buckland (Senior Committee Specialist), Helen Kinghorn (Committee Legal Specialist), Ana Ferreira (Senior Committee Assistant), Miguel Boo Fraga (Committee Assistant), Holly Knowles (Committee Support Assistant), George Margereson (Sandwich student), and Nick Davies (Committee Media Officer). Contacts Correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Justice Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 8196 and the email address is [email protected] Youth Justice 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 Our inquiry 5 The youth justice system 6 2 Prevention 7 Reducing the number of first-time entrants 7 Diversion 7 Successful diversionary approaches to minor offending 7 Looked after children 9 Intervening with children and young people at risk of offending 11 Impact of spending cuts on YOT prevention services 11 The role of Police and Crime Commissioners 14 The role of agencies outside the criminal justice system 14 Early intervention with younger children 16 The Troubled Families agenda 17 3 Responses to proven offending 19 Available disposals for proven offending 19 Out-of-court disposals 20 Young people on trial 21 Taking account of maturity in court 21 Taking account of welfare needs 24 Reducing the use of custody 26 Remands 28 Youth Justice Reinvestment Pathfinders 29 Breach 29 Custody thresholds 30 Alternatives to custody 33 Confidence in community sentences 33 Intensive alternatives to custody 34 Restorative justice 36 4 The secure estate 38 The composition of the estate 38 Deaths in custody 41 Use of force 42 Looked after children and care leavers 44 5 Reducing re-offending 48 Re-offending rates and factors affecting likelihood of re-offending 48 Evidence base 49 Factors influencing successful interventions 50 2 Youth Justice Relationships 50 Family involvement 50 Rehabilitation 52 Assessing young offenders for impairments and vulnerability 52 Speech, language and communication needs 54 Education and training 55 Resettlement 57 Spent convictions 59 Transition to adult provision 60 6 Conclusions 62 Conclusions and recommendations 63 Formal Minutes 69 Witnesses 70 List of printed written evidence 71 List of additional written evidence 71 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 72 Youth Justice 3 Summary The Youth Justice Board, youth offending teams and their partners have made great strides towards a more proportionate and effective response to youth offending which prioritises prevention. We strongly welcome the substantial decrease since 2006/07 in the number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time, and are particularly encouraged that agencies in many areas are using a restorative justice approach to resolve very minor offending. However, looked after children have not benefited from this shift to the same extent as other children and we make recommendations to ensure that local authorities, children’s homes and prosecutors have appropriate strategies in place to prevent them from being criminalised for trivial incidents which would never come to police attention if they took place in family homes. There is a limit to what criminal justice agencies can achieve in preventing offending: young people in the criminal justice system are disproportionately likely to have high levels of welfare need and other agencies have often failed to offer them support at an early stage. We are therefore disappointed that the Government does not plan a significant shift in resources towards early intervention and recommend more research into the contributory factors to the reductions in the number of young people entering the criminal justice system, to enable better decision-making about the distribution of funding. Out-of-court disposals can provide a proportionate means of dealing with offending that deserves a criminal justice response but is not serious enough to warrant prosecution, but we suggest some safeguards in response to concern amongst sentencers and the wider public that their use is not always transparent or appropriate. Where young people come before the courts, we make recommendations to protect the right of young offenders with speech, language and communication needs and/or a learning disability to a fair trial and to provide a mechanism for young people with exceptional welfare needs to be referred to the family court. In relation to sentencing, we commend the collaboration between the Youth Justice Board, youth offending teams and the judiciary to bring about a significant reduction in the numbers of young people in custody since 2008. In order to cement these gains, ensure we meet our international obligations for custody to be used only in cases of genuine last resort, and reduce the huge financial burden the secure estate places on the state, we recommend a statutory threshold to enshrine in legislation the principle that only the most serious and prolific young offenders should be placed in custody; devolving the custody budget to enable local authorities to invest in effective alternatives to custody; and more action to reduce the number of young people who breach the terms of their community sentences and the number of young black men in custody. We welcome the Government’s commitment to restorative justice; however we believe more should be done to make it integral to the youth justice system. We describe our vision for a complete reconfiguration of the secure estate to one comprising small, local units with a high staff ratio where young offenders who require detention can maintain links with their families and children’s services. We highlight three very serious issues in the custodial estate that require action. First, it is imperative to draw 4 Youth Justice together and act upon lessons arising from the deaths of vulnerable young people in custody. Secondly, we are concerned that the use of restraint, which has been linked to at least one of these deaths, rose considerably last year and press for a fundamental cultural shift across the secure estate. Thirdly, we recommend more and better co-ordinated support for looked after children and care leavers in custody, who are all too often abandoned by children’s and social services. In contrast