Youth Crime and Anti-social Behaviour

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Dholakia and agree wholeheartedly with the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Imbert, about the importance of family. It is crucial. Sadly, however, the only family that many of our young people have ever known is the gang culture. We need to understand that it is very unusual for a lot of children, strange as it seems, to have even one parent who is looking out for them. They have no choice but to live by the rules of the gang, and in my work for the Metropolitan Police Authority, I have seen some of the most horrendous things, such as children being made to hide guns because they were not currently on a police list. It is easy to get into a situation whereby you have almost no way out. I very much welcome the fact that this report sets out a clear and rational strategy for dealing with youth crime and anti-social behaviour.

The commission has built its central recommendations on reform of the three pillars, which are prevention, restoration and integration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, I shall highlight the prevention and integration elements. The key principle is that prevention is better than cure. I think that everyone agrees with that. Keeping people in prison is expensive but we must recognise that we do not live in a perfect world and there will always be a need for prisons. We need to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and re-imprisonment. A key element of rehabilitation and rehabilitating offenders is to get them into work so that they can earn a living and integrate into mainstream society. Earlier this year, I drew your Lordships’ attention to the successful reforms introduced at Feltham Young Offender Institution in west London. The prisons regime includes education, workshops and vocational training, and in 2009 a pilot scheme called Project Daedalus was launched. The project aims to break the cycle of youth reoffending through intensive support. It really is intensive support—it begins inside custody and continues for the whole time the person is in prison, and during their release in the community.

In the wing in Feltham where this pilot is taking place, the reoffending rate has dropped to just over 18 per cent compared with a national average for juvenile reoffending of 78 per cent—a substantial drop. In addition, security incidents in the unit are 90 per cent lower than in other units in Feltham. The project is such a success that it will be rolled out to other young offender institutions. There is no question that such projects cost money—a lot of money—to implement, and at a time when the Government have to make cuts in public expenditure there is a real temptation to say that we cannot afford it. That would be a serious false economy because programmes to reduce reoffending, although they cost money, represent money well spent. It is estimated that for every £1 that the Government spend, they will save at least £20 later. It is certainly a false economy not to spend the money now because it costs so much more to imprison young offenders, not to mention the costs imposed on society by crime, such as police time and court proceedings. The high rates of reoffending also impose costs that cannot easily be quantified—diminishing people’s quality of life and reducing public confidence in the police and the justice system.

Of course getting young offenders into the labour market is not the only way to reduce reoffending, nor is it the only means of rehabilitation, but it is an important way of tackling the problem. We are all subject, almost daily, to a relentless tabloid-driven campaign that focuses only on the punitive aspects of combating crime. It is natural for people who have suffered the effects of crime to have strong emotions but we must resist the temptation to reject the rational in favour of the emotional. It is the Government’s responsibility to act rationally and support programmes that are proven to reduce reoffending.



A debate a couple of days ago on the future of the Youth Justice Board suggested that there is strong cross-party support for measures that succeed in reducing youth crime. In conclusion, to what extent will the Government adopt and take forward the recommendations of the report of the independent commission, given the report’s self-evident wisdom?