Justice for children in trouble
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Justice for children in trouble
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NOTES OF MEETING HELD ON 14 .01.03 Matters Arising 1. Custody: a) There has been a slight reduction in the custodial population since September although the LAYJ does not yet have detailed figures. b) The issue of transfer of children on DTOs to adult YOIs when they reach the age of 18 was discussed. This causes major problems in terms of the proper sentence planning etc since the adult estate is not equipped to deal with DTOs. It is also obviously worse for the young people. It appears to be fairly standard practice and the YJB do not appear to want to intervene – leaving it as an issue for the prison service. Having said that the number of 18 year olds held within the juvenile secure estate appears to be rising – from 169 in October 2001 to 409 in September 2002. It is worth writing to Governors where there is a planned move and, on occasion, this has resulted in the decision being reversed. b) Sex offender registration Since this was discussed the Government has published its White Paper on reform of sex offences legislation, called Protecting the Public. In addition to a range of new legislation on sex offences, it contains a number of proposals for amending procedures for registration. These are mainly in terms of requiring notification in person where it can currently be done in writing. There is no proposal however to distinguish procedures for children from adults. c) Final Warning ASSET The electronic version of the shorter ASSET does still not seem to have materialised although it was due in October 2002. d) National Standards Publication of the revised version of the Standards was expected at the Youth Justice Board Convention but did not appear. Apparently, they are still with the Home Office awaiting approval and there is no indication when that might happen. Criminal Justice Bill ( See Notes ) Tim led a discussion on the youth justice implications of the criminal justice bill. This is just one part of a number of expected changes which will impact upon children in trouble. These include: q Protecting the public – reform of law on sex offences q An anti social behaviour bill expected shortly q A green paper on youth crime prevention expected in February – this will include the stuff on ‘Identification, referral and tracking’. q Legislation on reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. The Bill is now in Committee stage following its second reading. LAYJ Business a) Feedback on Nacro/ LAYJ conference The conference on 16th December went well and was oversubscribed again. The evaluation is generally positive although the venue did not score so well as the Britannia centre which we used previously. Agreed that we should organise a further joint conference later this year – probably November – preferably at the Britannia Centre. Ideas for speakers or workshop leaders please to Tim. John Pitts was suggested as a possible opening speaker. Tim will investigate. Effective Practice Guidance The Board has now published ten Key Indicators of Effective Practice with a further five due in the early part of this year. These are supplemented by ‘source’ documents on the Board’s website. There is also a draft Quality Assurance Toolkit on the site. It is intended that YOTs will be scored on their performance against the indicators (self assessment) with the focus for this year being on final warnings, education, training and employment and assessment, planning interventions and supervision. Year two will look at remand management, offending behaviour and restorative justice. The effective practice guidance will be the main discussion topic at the next meeting.
Howard League / Children Act ruling The Howard League won their judicial review against the position of the Home Office that the Children Act does not apply to those in custody (Press release attached). However, the court also said that while the Act applies to the kids, it does not apply to the prison service. It is a little unclear what the practical implications are but, in the event that any YOT practitioner has concerns about the treatment of a young person in custody, they ought to make a child protection referral to the social services department where the YOI is located or consider taking a case. It appears that there will however be no additional funding for SSDs as a result of the ruling. Sentencing / Court Issues a) Early impact of ISSPs Although there are a significant number of ISSPs being made, the impact on custody as yet appears to be relatively limited. The number of DTOs imposed fell in the first quarter that ISSPs were available but rose in the both of the subsequent quarters. In part, the increase is a consequence of increased court throughput over the same period but it is nonetheless a bit disappointing. It is not clear to what extent, ISSPs are netwidening by displacing other community sentences or whether they have in fact had a dampening effect on the use of custody which would otherwise have been significantly higher. It should also be noted that custody appears to have fallen in the period since that shown in the attached table. Remands show a similar picture. b) Patterns of sentencing The Board has produced a glossy leaflet with the above title which is a summary of a research report prepared for the Board by Nacro. The research suggests that different patterns of sentencing, and in particular, levels of custody cannot be explained by different patterns of offending. There are a number of factors identified which do explain it. Low custody areas are characterised by: q Higher confidence of magistrates in the quality of youth justice services q Higher confidence of magistrates that programmes will be delivered as outlined in a PSR and cases will be breached appropriately q Better quality PSRs q Higher use of reparation orders and other orders below the community sentence level q Lower use of adult type disposals. The full report is available on the Board’s website under the policy section and copies of the summary are available from the Board on 020 7271 3033. The Home Office has published some estimates of the future use of custody up to 2009. There are four different scenarios described but each involves a substantial increase – with the highest being a custodial population of more than 109,000 from the current level of under 80,000. The projections do not take into account any increase as a result of proposals in the criminal justice bill. d) Night courts According to a report in the Guardian, night courts are likely to be scrapped after the pilots proved to be a rather dubious use of financial resources. YOT Issues a) Inspections of YOTs There has now been agreement over inspections of YOTs which are to be led by HMI of Probation in conjunction with other inspectorates. This follows the suspension of previous inspections a couple of years ago after, what were reported to be, disagreements over how they should be conducted. Reading between the lines, the new inspection regime appears to be the result of an argument which the Board has lost. The Board is not to be involved in the inspections themselves but is to be consulted over them. The LAYJ suspects that the Board would have liked direct involvement if not to be the lead agency. Incidentally, the Chief Inspector of Probation, Rod Morgan, who is to head up the inspections, appears to the LAYJ to be a bit of an old fashioned chap. He recently complained to NAPO conference that PSRs weren’t proposing enough conditional discharges and fines. Some people would regard that kind of thinking as being associated with youth justice dinosaurs. b) YOT league tables The Board has published league tables of London YOTs based on their performance against the target measures. On this measure, Redbridge is by far the best YOT in the capital with a score of 42 against 34 for their nearest rival. Conversely, 7 YOTs share the distinction of scoring minus 16 (which is what you get if you fail to provide the Board with the relevant data on time). The LAYJ is sure that the next time Redbridge advertises for staff they will be inundated with workers desperate to get out of their underperforming YOT. Referral OrdersThree points of concern were raised. First, the number of orders imposed for extremely minor offences. Although some courts appear willing to go for absolute discharges, this is far from universal and Enfield’s clerk has advised magistrates not to do so after conducting a brief survey of other London courts. It is understood that the Board and the Home Office are planning to introduce legislation to prevent silly offences resulting in referral orders. Second, is the difficulty where custody is a possible outcome and the court only has 2 choices. There was a consensus that there are certainly kids going to custody who would not have done so had other options been available. Third, is the length of time which appears to be common between the order being made and the panel hearing - rarely within the standards timescale of 15 days. This makes it less likely that the young person will engage and is also unfair as the order only starts once a contract has been agreed. Training StrategyThe Board’s training strategy is to be piloted on a regional basis. It aims to provide accredited training for all staff within YOTs irrespective of background or previous qualification. All is closely linked to the Effective Practice Guidance. London has been divided into 5 clusters based around Connexions areas (why?). Each cluster will have an accredited NVQ assessor. Each of the 10 Govt regions will have a training and human resources coordinator. The Certificate in Youth Justice involves 6 days taught course supported by ‘readers’. Relevance of age for sentencing A recent case suggests that the age of the young person at the time of the offence should generally provide the starting point for sentence. In this case, a child committed a serious assault at age 14 when custody would not have been available. He was convicted at 15 years and was given a DTO of 18 months in the crown court. The Court of Appeal substituted a supervision order on the basis that there was no reason to depart from the starting point. The appropriate sentence is that he would have received at the time of the offence. Headteachers to be given power to fine parents The Government are proposing to reduce pressure on the courts by giving headteachers the power to fine parents of children who don’t attend school (oh and the police and education welfare officers and those people with the lollipops who help you cross the road). Recent publications 1. Children Welfare and the State, edited by Barry Goldson, Michael Lavalette and Jim McKechnie A collection of articles on children’s welfare aimed to provide an overview of the subject. In includes an article by Barry Goldson on youth justice. 2. Drugs, young people and offending The Home Office has published two reports on this subject. The first – Research Findings 182, the Prevalence of Drugs Use – show that use of Class A drugs has not increased among 16 – 24 year olds since 1994. But cocaine and use of ecstacy have however become more common. Cannabis remains is by far the most frequently used drug. The second – Home Office Research Study 253 – The Road to Ruin – concludes that there is little evidence to support the gateway theory that soft drugs lead to hard drugs. Moreover, offending appears to precede drugs use so the latter cannot be thought to cause youth crime in the way it is sometimes presented. ( full reports available on the Home Office website at www.homeoffice.gov.uk.) 3. Changing Attitudes to Punishment by Mike Hough and Julian Roberts A collection of articles on public opinion of punishment and international evidence on how to change it. 4. Parenting Under Pressure Looks at the impact on family life of one member of the family being in prison. 5. Young people and street crime A report on street crime, produced for the YJB, which concludes that much of such offending is related to the nature of the consumer culture among young people. The full report is on the Board’s website at www.youth-justice-board.gov.uk Next Meeting Agenda items or apologies for the next meeting at Coram Family on 10 February to Lis Davies on 020 8345 5557 or Tim Bateman on 020 7840 6436. |
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