The London Association for Youth Justice

 

 

NOTES OF MEETING of 11.6.02 HELD AT CORAM FAMILY

(please ensure full circulation within your team)

 

Present:

Tony Beckles                -           Islington

Julian Hale                    -           Remand Review

Louise Kemp                -           Harrow

Malcolm Pacey             -           Islington

Simon Stone                  -           Islington           

Kev Wood                    -           Greenwich

Tim Bateman                -           Nacro

 

Apologies:

Lis Davies

Dates of Future Meetings: 

Matters Arising

1. Nacro / LAYJ Conference

Booking confirmed for 16th December, deposit paid and initial fliers  - requesting workshops - have gone out.

Confirmed speakers:

Jeremy Coleman, a youth specialist district judge, based at West London Youth Court,

Keith Towler, Director of Crime Reduction Nacro.

Malcolm Stevens, Director of Group 4 (for a seminar).

 

Jan Dalrymple (YJB) has agreed verbally to do a presentation but has so far not responded to an e mail confirming it. It was agreed that we might also approach the Howard League. 

Any other suggestions / offers of workshops to Tim as soon as possible.

 

2. Revised National Standards

Malcolm reported that according to David Monk of the Board, the standards are due to go to ministers, having been amended in the light of consultation, before the summer recess. Will then be issued in September in advance of the publication of Effective Practice Guidance in November.

 

That guidance is based upon the reports from national supporters of the Development Funded projects, heavily edited by the Board to form a single, ‘coherent’ manual. It is not clear what will be happening to the evaluations – they may be included in the guidance or published separately / or disappear for a while. 

 

The implementation date of the standards (as opposed to when they are to be issued) is not yet certain.

 

3. ISSP Areas

Malcolm circulated a list of the ‘clusters’ which the Board is suggesting for outer London YOTs.  Some of them cover a large geographical area and there are likely to be logistical issues, particularly given the short implementation time. (By September).

 

Malcolm reported that the ISSP website, www.issp.org.uk, (linked to the YJB’s site) has recently been password protected. This is strange given that a lot of the information is simply around criteria etc which would be useful for all practitioners – may be one reflection of an increasing desire at the Board to control information centrally.  

 

4. Survey of YOT managers

The survey – which among other things canvassed the views of managers on the advantages (note that disadvantages were not asked for) of a national service – is on the agenda for a two day YOT manager conference today and tomorrow in Telford.

 

The Conference is entitled Building the Profession, which may or may not be a reference to the development of a centralised Youth Justice provision. It is understood that the agenda includes watching the England / Nigeria game while eating a traditional Nigerian breakfast.

 

There was a discussion on what the practical implications of a national service might be in relation to current provision. Possible differences with current arrangements include:

 

§         Question of staff loyalties – eg officers of the court / Home Office rather than local service provision to children and families. Ability to criticise Govt policy on youth crime would be severely curtailed (think of probation).

§         Funding would be centralised and performance could be more effectively linked to performance and doing what you are told. Possible increase in the numbers of performance indicators as a result. 

§         The Board could determine the structure / size / geographical extension of YOTs. In London that would mean amalgamations (possibly along the lines of ISSP clusters).

§         Difficulties of relating to partner agencies – eg if not part of the local authority already difficult relationships with say local education authority might be made more difficult.

§         Long term there may be an erosion of multi agency working as YOT officer becomes a profession with its own qualification.

§         YOT managers would lose some of their existing autonomy

§         It would make the Youth Justice Board indispensable.

 

It is rumoured that there is a split in terms of Board members about whether to move to a centralised service and that this may influence whether contracts are extended beyond the 3 years to which some are subject.

Street Robbery

 1.                   1. Kevin introduced a discussion on robbery and the street crime initiative. Much of the relevant information is held on the BBC website at www.news.bbc.co.uk.

2. The street crime initiative has come as a response to concerns about rises in robbery, street violence and other offences such as carjacking. While burglary and vehicle crime have fallen by 2.5% robbery has risen by 12.9% with projected increases by 100% over the next 5 years. One explanation is that better design security make certain types of crime such as burglary less attractive – as electrical goods increasingly have less utility on the second hand market. Has led to a switch to softer targets – eg humans. The switch is currently focussed on bits of plastic – that is mobile phones – but this problem may well shortly be sorted by changes to the electronics to make them useless once stolen. That might suggest the potential of a further shift of emphasis to cash/ extortion.

 3. According to one estimate there were 700,000 mobile phones stolen in England and Wales – double the number reported to the police. It is increasing:

In 1998 – 9:       8% of robberies involved mobile phones

In 1999 – 2000: 16%

In 2000 – 01:     28%.

Only around 22% of robberies are committed by those over the age of 25 so is a major issue for youth justice.

 In London, ‘muggings’ have risen by 38% in a single year. Now 190 robberies a day with a 14% clear up.

 4. In early March, David Blunkett gave notice to the Met that if there was no improvement by August in robbery figures then external managers may be brought in. In late March the first high

level meeting took place at number 10 (some YOT managers were in attendance) in the COBRA room. These meetings have continued on a weekly basis. Use of the room, generally signifies a national emergency and it has most recently housed meetings on the fuel crisis, the foot and mouth outbreak and the response to Sept 11. However the Govt has played down the significance pointing out that COBRA simply stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A.

 

5. The meetings have led to the Street Crime Initiative, which targets 10 areas which account for 82% of street crime (and a not too dissimilar proportion of the population one might think). Those areas have seen a range of changes – eg street crime courts, youth justice specialist prosecutors, extension of ISSPs, piloting bail tagging, piloting section 130 and so on. By the end of April, Tony Blair was able to announce that he would have the problem under control by the end of September (and abolish terminal diseases by end of the financial year). 

 In fact, in London there appears to have been a reduction already – in fact before the PM’s announcement – with street crime at its lowest for a year in March, in Lambeth robbery has halved.  The police have put this down to the fact that 250 traffic police have been transferred to anti street crime duties.

 6. Kevin circulated an action plan developed in Manchester (available at www.manchester.gov.uk/crime/strategy/plans/robbery.htm) shows what is likely to become a typical local response. A number of worrying implications for YOTs:

 

§         Analysis of all partner data and intelligence to produce a top ten offender list specifically includes the YOT

§         Preventative work with potential offenders (what age and who should be doing it?)

§         Themed groupwork for potential offenders (what age and who should be doing it?).

 

In any event, it highlights recent developments plus Lord Chief Justice Woolfe’s comments on sentencing mobile phone theft highlights the importance of developing programmes aimed specifically at robbery is there to any chance of avoiding custody in a lot of areas. Kevin circulated an old specified activity robbery programme – again from Manchester. It was noted that Sherborne House used to run a robbery programme before it started doing ‘effective practice’.

 

7. There was a discussion of issues raised. These included:

 

§         To what extent figures are reliable. In 2000, for instance the British Crime Survey showed a 22% reduction in robbery. In addition, it needs to be acknowledged that any percentage increase is from a relatively low base. Thus a 20% reduction in burglary represents a much greater number of offences than a 20% increase in robbery.

§         There is some anecdotal evidence that charging criteria are changing – ie robbery being charged for incidents which would previously have been theft and may have been diverted from court. Police gravity scores however ensure that all robberies will go to court.

§         Issue of ethnicity. Home Office research suggests (backed up by YJB data) that greater number of black young people are charged with robbery of mobile phones (whereas white young people figure more prominently in burglary). This has implications for the ethnicity of those in custody. Julian pointed out that one third of those on remand in Feltham were there for robbery. 

 

DTO – Early Release Provisions

 

1. The Home Office has announced revised criteria for early release from DTO effective from 29 May. In effect, there is now a presumption that all those on DTOs (other than those serving for sexual offences, homicide, arson, GBH with intent, kidnapping and various firearms offences) will be released on an electronic tag at the earliest opportunity. – ie one or two months before the half way stage. 

 

The only young people who will not be released (other than the above list) are those who

§         Exhibit violence / dangerous behaviour while inside

§         Those who have seriously damaged the unit

§         Those who have made exceptionally bad progress against the training plan.

 

2. In practice, the effects of the changes are that a lot more young people will get out early since the early release provisions have rarely been used until now. (Indeed that is the point – the whole idea is to free up space to allow implementation of S130 while sounding tough.) On the other hand all those released will be on a tag from 7.00am – 7.00pm and some of those who would previously have been potentially eligible to get out early will be excluded. This is not only those in the categories where there is a presumption against early release (who would previously have been considered on merit) but also those whose families are not happy to have the monitoring equipment installed, those who are likely to go into B+B and many of those who are looked after where there is likely to be a problem about installation.  

 

3. There is also a bit increase in workload for the YOTs given the requirement to have conducted a full assessment by the final review stage.

 

Electronic Monitoring on Bail – 17 year olds

 

1. The Home Office still appears very confused about the application of the legislation to 17 year olds. (Their position is, in fact, by any reckoning untenable – see previous minutes for further discussion.) However, in response to a question from Malcolm the juvenile offenders unit confirmed that ministers were currently looking at making practical arrangementsfor the tagging of 17 year olds on bail.

 

2. As is well known, things now move pretty quick in youth justice and a Home Office press release dated the following day but in fact issued on 6th June (available on website at www.homeoffice.gov.uk) indicated that tagging for 17 year olds will available in street crime initiative areas from 8 July. No mention however of national role out.  

 

Howard League – youth justice casework department

 

The Howard League is launching a legal casework department to take cases on behalf of young people – particularly those in custody. The service will take test cases, provide representation at parole hearings, and a freephone telephone advice service for children in prison. The Department is to be headed by Fran Russell and the League is currently recruiting a solicitor. (see www.howardleague.org)

 

 

 

Custody

 

1. Recent figures for those in prison service custody show an increase in both male and female young people over the previous year. There is a rise of 20% for boys in the remand population but sentences have actually fallen by 1%. The picture for girls is worse: remands up by 129%; sentenced by 19%.

 

2. The YJB has introduced a new booking form for the secure estate with a number of differences to be used with immediate effect. 

 

3. There is a recent appeal case in relation to adults and custody which has clear relevance for young people (reported in Criminal Law Review). In R v Kefford, it was held than in deciding sentence it was appropriate for courts to take into account the current overcrowding of prisons (because of the impact on both short term and long term prisoners). Wherever possible therefore custody should be avoided to allow the prison service to do a better job with those who are bound to get a sentence. The judgement was made by a powerful panel of judges: Lord Chief Justice Woolfe, Lord Justice Rose and Judge Judge (so good they named him twice – thanks Julian). It is accordingly likely to be fairly significant.

 

4. There have been two reports of YOIs by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (available at  www.homeoffice.gov.uk/hmipris/insrep.htm). The report on Eastwood Park holds under 18 girls and is reported as being ‘unable to provide a safe decent and constructive environment for many of the women and girls within it’. Visitors were forced by lack of other amenities to use a hedge as a toilet. In relation to girls in particular,  ‘it was impossible not to be struck by the profound personality disturbance and mental health problems that many presented and by the inappropriateness of prison, or indeed any other custodial placement, for them’.

 

Onley which provides for boys ‘was a long way from providing a safe environment’ and assessed by the HMIP 4 tests of a healthy prison, there were ‘concerns about Onley on all these counts’.

 

Blundering Social Workers

 

Blundering social workers is the title of a website devoted to exposing individual social workers. It has relatively dim view of the profession and would be quite amusing if it were not so dangerous. The site offers to name and shame any social worker referred to them for any reason and will if provided publish addresses and photographs. LAYJ encourages practitioners to complain to the ISP in order to get the site closed.

 

Youth Justice Board

 

1. The Youth Justice Board has commissioned a further large scale MORI poll which shows some genuinely interesting results. However, the whole affair is vitiated by the Board’s headlining of the report in terms of more young offenders are being punished. The Board apparently continues to be unaware that there is a relationship between that type of talk and increased use of real punishment – ie locking kids up. (Full report available from  YJB website www.youth-justice-board.gov.uk)

 

2. Also on the Board’s website is its current Corporate Plan. It includes targets for reducing reoffending by young people after intervention by 5%.  The figures make little sense but a number of points might be noticed.

 

§         YOTs have to achieve an increase in 3,100 young people who do not reoffend by 2004

§         Luckily (although there is no justification for this in the Plan) more than 1,700 of this target has been achieved.

§         The reason for using an absolute number – as opposed to the more obvious percentage of 2004 throughput - may be that in a period of declining youth crime such as the present, the target might be achieved without having any impact on reoffending rates at all. For instance, if crime falls by 3,100 and reoffending rates remain the same, then there will be a reduction in the number of young people reoffending by the required number. 

 

London Probation Service

 

The LPA is in the middle of a massive financial crisis due to an unforeseen overspend of £8m. It has terminated all temporary contracts, stopped the practice of ‘pay per court’ report through agency workers or probation officers working over their time and there is a threat to a further 200 jobs. In the worst case scenario, around 20% of posts could be affected. John Powls, the Chief Probation Officer has written to courts asking them not to request many PSRs. The service’s difficulties are bound to have an impact on YOTs if posts fall vacant. It may also influence the level of resources provided to YOTs next year.

 

Recent Publications

 

1. The Home Office (Research Findings 176) has recently published an evaluation of Drug Abstinence Orders in pilot areas (only available for adults) and police testing for drugs. The abstinence order has not been overwhelmingly successful with over half of people subject to tests breached on three consecutive occasions or 2 consecutive tests over a six week period. The LAYJ anticipates that, on the basis of these results, national roll out is imminent. (Full report available from the Home Office on 020 7273 2084 or on the website at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index/html)

 

2. The Children’s Society published a book on the vulnerability of children remanded to custody and secure accommodation by Barry Goldson. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any other business

 

1. Future Meetings

The next meeting was due to have a discussion on referral orders but that date clashes with a meeting of the newly formed London referral order coordinators’ network. This topic has accordingly been rescheduled for August.

 

2. Referral Orders

Islington have developed an innovative practice to deal with the problem that court’s do not know the content of a youth offender contract at the point of sentence when considering custody or referral order. The panel will meet during the PSR adjournment phase and draw up a draft contract top be confirmed in the event that the court makes a referral order. This information on

the proposed intensity and nature of contact will then be available to the court for sentence and will hopefully address the issue of magistrates’ confidence.

 

3. Education provision

The University of East Anglia is proposing to undertake research on the impact of multi agency work on getting kids back into education. If anyone knows of any YOTs where the education input is going well, please contact Tim Bateman on 020 7840 6436.  

 

Next Meeting

 

Agenda items or apologies for the next meeting at Coram Family on 17 July to Lis Davies on 020 8345 5557 or Tim Bateman on 020 7840 6436.