Young Offenders: Employment and Training

Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Lords Chamber

Tabled By

[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they have in place to help young offenders find employment or training on release from prison.

[Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill]

My Lords, I thank the Government for granting this short debate, and I am grateful to the many organisations, including the Library, which offered briefings on young offenders and their opportunities for employment and training on release. I am concerned about the level of reoffending among young people. Most reoffending on release occurs in the first three months, so questions must be asked about the effectiveness of these prison sentences. Can we as a society find a better way for these young men and women to lead a more fulfilling and productive life?

It is believed that the total cost to the UK economy of offending by young people could be as much as £11 billion a year. This is a bad time to be young, with 22% of young adults not in education, employment or training, and just under 1 million 16 to 24 year-olds unemployed. The abolition of the education maintenance allowance, increased tuition fees, cuts to services and further caps to housing and other benefits are creating a hostile climate for our young people.

For young adult offenders, finding long-term, stable employment is an even greater challenge. Young adults in trouble with the law often have particularly high levels of complex needs and come from deeply disadvantaged backgrounds. Frequently they have few or no educational qualifications and no experience of work. Often they lack positive adult role models and suffer high levels of mental ill health and alcohol and drug misuse. This month Sadiq Khan said that a future priority for a Labour Government would be to give the Justice Minister specific responsibility for rooting out mental health problems in our criminal justice system.

In order to reduce reoffending, we must understand the underlying conditions that affect so many young people before we can find solutions that offer hope. Statistics reveal the stark reality of lives lived against the odds. Of young offenders imprisoned in 2012, two-thirds were unemployed, nine out of 10 had been excluded from school, one-quarter had learning difficulties and half had a reading age below that expected of an 11 year-old.

Once released, the picture does not improve. According to the Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Young Adult Manifesto, published in 2009 and developed by T2A, the Transition to Adulthood Alliance, one in five men between the ages of 15 and 21 leaving prison did not know where they were going to live on release. Many of those will have been in care. Black and minority ethnic young adults experienced even higher levels of homelessness and were less likely to have a family or support system to return to.

Unstable accommodation triggers a vicious cycle, severely hindering former prisoners from finding employment. It is believed that around a quarter of employers would not consider employing a homeless person. The Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning organisation points out that difficulties in finding accommodation on release reduce the opportunities for training, education and employment. It suggested that ex-offenders need to find accommodation and employment or training within three weeks of release or they are likely to reoffend.

At the end of June 2012 there were 7,443 young people aged 18 to 20 in prison in England and Wales. Although there has been a welcome steady decline in the number of young people in custody in the past decade, thanks in part to the work of the Youth Justice Board, there are still far too many. Greater use of restorative justice should be examined. What works best to reduce reoffending? T2A has run three pilot projects in Birmingham, London and West Mercia with 36 young offenders. Funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, they show very positive results, and the Government should take note. T2A argues that the transition to adulthood is happening later in people’s lives than in recent generations. Research has shown that the adult brain is not fully developed until at least the mid-20s, yet these young adults with complex problems often have to negotiate multiple transitions between services and systems when they reach 18. They can easily fall between the gaps and lose the support that might have helped them make a smooth transition to adulthood.

Young adults aged between 16 and 24 are the group most likely to commit a criminal offence, but with the right intervention and support they are also the group most likely to desist from offending and grow out of crime. Therefore T2A argues that the focus for public expenditure should be on encouraging desistance by concentrating on the factors which are known to reduce crime; namely, employment, housing and health. The pilots gave the young people individual support, resulting in a reduction in the six-month reconviction rate to 9%, compared with the national one-year reconviction rate for 18 to 20 year-olds of 46%. Those participating in the pilots experienced a trebling in employment and were more positive about apprenticeships and courses with a vocational and training element, rather than purely educational courses. The London pilot was particularly effective in finding its clients sustainable apprenticeships. However, accommodation remained a problem. The majority of those who were homeless to begin with did not move into stable accommodation.

The need for assistance with accommodation on release is confirmed in numerous reports. An HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on looked-after children found that a significant number of children and young people had not obtained early release because they had nowhere safe to be released to. HMIP also reported that one-quarter of boys and more than half of girls had been in the care of social services before entering custody.

I am very concerned by the Government’s proposals to deny young people aged under 25 housing benefit. It will mean that many young offenders who do not have families to return to, and who desperately need to find a job or training to help them desist from returning to crime, will be without any kind of home from which to go out and find work, training or education.

In attempting to find solutions to the problem of young people reoffending, the Howard League for Penal Reform argues that the current system sets children and young people up to fail. The league strongly argues that young people should spend much less time in isolation in their cells while in prison and must have increased and more purposeful activities during association and at weekends. This would make a real difference in preparing them for release and the possibilities of taking up employment, training or education.

There appears to be general agreement about what needs to be done. The Government’s Green Paper of December 2010, Breaking the Cycle, recognised that custody should be,

“used sparingly as a last resort as it separates young people from their families and communities, can seriously disrupt education, training and development and is an expensive option that does not deliver good outcomes for young people”.

Therefore, will the Government consider taking a number of steps which would not necessarily increase spending but would make outcomes more effective?

First, they could issue guidance to local authorities to link up with crime-reduction partnerships and the new police and crime commissioners to ensure those young people just released have access to appropriate accommodation.

Secondly, will they encourage local authorities to develop wrap-around support for young adults leaving custody, as recommended by the government-appointed panel which published the After the Riots report?

Thirdly, in partnership with voluntary and probation teams, the Government could develop greater use of “through the gate” support. Mentors can provide the role of a significant adult and enable the young person to stick to their tenancy agreement, training programme or supervision. Young people must not be left to sink or swim on release.

Fourthly, the Government should ensure that planning for resettlement should start from the moment a person enters custody, and include the young person and their families. Those who received visits from their family were twice as likely to gain employment and three times more likely to have accommodation on release.

Fifthly, they could incentivise employers to employ ex-offenders. A good example is the National Grid’s young offender programme of apprenticeships for those still serving sentences, which then guarantees jobs on release. This has resulted in reducing the reoffending rate to below 6%, as compared to the national average of 70%, and is estimated to save the UK taxpayer more than £350 million.

Sixthly, the Government could consider some special financial assistance for these young people to help them through FE colleges and access courses.

Finally, they should reconsider the abolition of housing benefit for those aged under 25. Securing appropriate accommodation on release has been shown to be vital for obtaining employment and therefore preventing reoffending. The Government need to support voluntary bodies, local authorities and employers to give these young people a fresh start for their sake and that of society, and to cut crime and save taxpayers’ money in these austere times.

It is incumbent on all in public life to try to solve this problem of young reoffending. There is growing agreement both here and abroad that access to employment and training, education and housing, health services and help with recovering from substance abuse are all part of the package needed to give young people a second chance on release.