The National Youth Agency - Crime and Youth Justice Quarterly

Crime and Youth Justice Quarterly – Issue 2 - November 2008

12 Nov 2008
In the last three months the government’s cross-departmental Youth Crime Action Plan has been published and violent crime, particularly relating to young people, has rarely been out of the news. This newsletters picks out some key issues and developments with links to source material for further information. Feel free to pass this newsletter on to others so they can sign up if interested.

Commons debate - youth violence

Simon Hughes MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey introduced (October 21) a debate on the issue of youth violence in London. Amongst a range of points made during the debate, he presented a ‘shopping list’ of action points, including the need:

Also of interest...

To minimize school exclusions
To de-glamorise gangs
To develop after-school, evening and weekend youth services.
To develop early mentoring services.
For a detached youth worker in every Greater London ward to complement the safer neighbourhood teams (38%
To be optimistic about the chances of reducing youth violence and demonise young people less.

Fear and Fashion

A group of mainly London-focused grant-makers are jointly funding the Fear and Fashion programme, an initiative to tackle the knife and weapons culture of young people. The research underpinning the programme was commissioned in 2004 and identified two main motivations for carrying knives: fear of being attacked and the attraction, or fashion, of belonging to a group or gang.

The programme will be reviewed in 2009/10, with the aim of continuing until about 2012. It currently encompasses several projects, including a website that provides advice and information for parents and young people as well as guidance for practitioners working with young people.

Civil injunctions

The Court of Appeal has upheld a judge's decision not to grant Birmingham City Council civil injunctions against alleged gang members. The orders, which restricted movements, banned individuals from seeing each other and, in some cases, wearing specific clothes, were used by the council instead of antisocial behaviour orders (Asbos). The three judges ruled that the council should have sought Asbos if it had sufficient evidence. The ruling means that the civil injunctions will not now be taken up across England and Wales. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who had praised Birmingham City Council's use of the injunctions said the government may now seek to change the law.

The city council had pioneered the use of the injunctions from August 2007, obtaining 30 interim orders, and has said it would seek to take the case to the House of Lords.

Youth Crime Action plan

The plan comprises a cross government analysis of what the Government thinks is needed to tackle youth crime – to reduce the 100,000 10-17 year olds who enter the criminal justice system for the first time each year. It proposes a ‘triple track’ approach to tackle youth crime and anti-social behaviour, which includes enforcement; support and challenge; and prevention. It came out for consultation in July with responses sought by 17 October 2008. Some commentators expected it to signal a change in the approach to youth crime, with the DCSF arguing for a more welfare-based approach.

Local authorities are identified as having a key role in implementing the Youth Crime Action Plans. An important milestone will be the implementation of Targeted Youth Support arrangements in local authorities by December 2008 which will see integrated services targeting children and young people who are at risk more effectively. The plan calls for local authorities to fund and commission the education of young offenders in custody and to help support a more comprehensive package of support for young people leaving custody, as well as facilitating access to suitable accommodation and health services for all young offenders leaving custody.

Intensive Intervention Projects

The DCSF has announced that £13m will be shared between 20 areas in England (between 2008-09 and 2010-11) to help them set up Intensive Intervention Projects to challenge and support youngsters in trouble. The projects comprise targeted packages of support intended to challenge young people – and their parents if necessary – to overcome their problems. Up to 3000 young people are expected to benefit in total by the end of this period.

The Youth Taskforce Action Plan committed this amount of funding to help deliver Challenge and Support projects. These projects are designed to provide a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of support alongside anti-social behaviour enforcement measures on young people. This includes ensuring that all ASBOs are accompanied with an ISO or appropriate support. The projects will ensure that at every stage local services are working to assess young people’s needs and to offer appropriate support to young people involved in, or at risk of, anti-social behaviour.

Punitive rhetoric

In a recent speech on prison policy to the Royal Society of Arts, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, signalled a more punitive approach to prisons by attacking the "criminal justice lobby" for putting the needs of offenders before those of victims. He says it is time to reclaim the "unfashionable" language of punishment and reform and make clear that the justice system is there to serve victims and the law-abiding majority first. He also complained about the use of impenetrable jargon.

Professor Ian Loader

Partly in response to Jack Straw’s comments, Professor Ian Loader has written in the Guardian to argue that Straw’s “embrace of penal excess” is out of synch with public opinion.

He agrees with Straw that the penal system in England and Wales “lacks a coherent public philosophy, a story about why and whom, what way and how much, we punish that can really connect with public thinking about crime in society” but that the “penal crisis” is linked to politicians’ excessive appetite for punishment. “Historians can be left to puzzle over why a government that inherited and sustained falling crime levels has behaved with such counterproductive hyperactivity in this field. The penal crisis is, however, a legacy of that restless excess.” Outlining the international context, Loader states that “since 1995 prison numbers in England and Wales have risen by 60%. In France over that period they rose by 1%, in Canada they fell by 11%”.

Calls to reduce custody for children and young people

There has been an escalation in the calls for halting the use of custody, particularly for children and young people in advance of the UN's committee on the rights of the child (CRC) releasing its latest assessment of the UK's record of looking after its 13.1 million people aged 17 and under. Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo's and former director general of the Prison Service has made a range of points, reported in the Guardian, including:

"England and Wales has the third highest child custody rate in Europe. Custody for children as young as this does nothing for them and nothing for the victims of their crimes."
A fivefold surge in child and youth custody sentences over the past decade has created an "expensive and ineffective" criminal justice strategy, it says.
The explosion in the use of custody for very young children when youth offending has not been growing is inexplicable, unjustifiable and unnecessary.
Custodial sentences are ineffective because 78 per cent of 10 to 14 year olds reoffend within 12 months of release. Sentencing thresholds need to be changed.
It is often the most vulnerable young people in society who end up in the criminal justice system. Despite this, only 5% of the £445m spent by the Youth Justice Board was invested in preventative work.
572 children aged 14 or under, none of whom had committed a serious crime, were imprisoned last year.

The Children Aren't Criminals campaign convenor, Stephen Jakobi, is demanding a royal commission to look at the reviewing the age of criminal responsibility, arguing that ten- to 13-year-olds should be taken out of the criminal justice system entirely.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has recently announced the withdrawal of two of its key reservations about the convention on child rights. The sections require safe treatment of asylum seekers' children and ban the detention of children and adolescents in adult prisons.

Conflicting targets are impeding drive to reduce use of custody

Agencies striving for different targets could hinder work to reduce the number of young people in custody, according to an evaluation of a national scheme to reduce the number of young people in prison.

The first year evaluation of the Children in Trouble Project, a joint initiative between the Local Government Association and the Howard League for Penal Reform, was published at the end of October. The report says that the police's "offences brought to justice" target is at direct odds with the children in trouble target to bring down the use of custody for under-18s.

Youth entrants to criminal justice system falling according to new government figures

New government figures published (10 November) show a downward trend in young people entering the criminal justice system in England for 2007-8, with 10,000 fewer young people compared with last year receiving a first reprimand, warning or sentence in a criminal court.

Data published by the Youth Justice Board covering England and Wales also shows a reduction in the number of young offenders entering the CJS recorded by Youth Offending Teams in the last year - albeit a lower one of 6.8 per cent, and a 10.2 per cent reduction compared to 2005-06.

The statistics highlighted by the government include:

The number of offenders aged 10-17 in England going into the criminal justice system fell from 103,955 in 2006-7, to 93,601 in 2007-8, a drop of 7.8%.
Nationally, the rate of those entering the CJS per 100,000 10-17 year olds fell from 2,031 in 2006-07, to 1,840 in 2007-08.
All regions of England have seen a reduction in both the number and the rate of such cases per 100,000 in the last year.

Police strategy - Sheffield

A South Yorkshire police strategy document reported on in The Times calls for a new approach to confronting gang violence by 'postcode gangs' in Sheffield. Efforts to tackle gang membership among secondary school pupils are doomed to fail, say the authors, because by that age vulnerable children are already immersed in the culture - boys as young as six are being recruited into gangs.

Equipping young people for the future and preventing violence

The Mayor of London is seeking the views of Londoners, community organisations, practitioners, the voluntary sector, and the statutory sector. Time for Action sets out the Mayor’s vision for a programme of action for Equipping Young People for the Future and Preventing Violence. Feedback is sought on proposals to improve youth opportunities and prevent violence through a programme for action. In particular, views are sought on the action strands in the framework, and how these can be further developed and implemented.

Look what happens when young people set the research agenda!
15 November, Warwick

This Young Researcher Network (YRN) conference is of interest to those involving young people in research. The conference will showcase the findings from 14 youth led research projects that have been carried out this year. Further information >>

The NYA's Crime and Youth Justice Team are always interested to hear about the various ways that young people are involved in community and criminal justice related work in your area. To submit a case study or discuss further, contact Graham Fletcher, National Programme Manager on 0116 242 7411.

Do you find this newsletter useful? Send any comments or questions to: Ross Little, Senior Information Officer at The National Youth Agency.