Children: Secure Children’s Homes

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, this debate identifies two issues that need to be addressed. First, there is the effect of budget cuts on secure children's homes and, secondly, there is the impact of cuts on policies designed to deal with reoffending rates. In this debate, we cannot ignore the fact that in recent times there has been a reduction in the custody of children of 10 years of age. That is welcome, but we should also be concerned that England and Wales has the lowest age of criminal responsibility and the highest level of child incarceration in western Europe. These are the further issues that cannot be avoided or ignored.

Past government announcements have made it clear that the independent role provided by the Youth Justice Board is, they say, no longer required. There is no dispute that the Youth Justice Board was created in response to a lack of cohesion and collaborative working, which was a feature of our justice system in dealing with children and young persons. Equally, it is true that the Youth Justice Board has, over 12 years, developed a secure and distinct estate for young people. This is something we all welcome. I am aware of the Government's intention to retain youth offending teams and that they will continue to place young people separately from adult offenders in dedicated, secure estates. The Youth Justice Board already has a proven record and I suspect that it should be a barometer against which all future successes or failures will be measured.

There is ample evidence at hand that preventive intervention in the lives of children with behavioural problems can bring about improvements and reduce the risk of serious or persistent offending at a later stage. That is why this must be at the heart of any policy development in reducing offending. It is beyond dispute that a substantial number of young people—the figure could be as high as 70 per cent—reoffend within two years of leaving a penal establishment. Prisons do little to correct this behaviour. This is where specialised help, geared to the need of individual offenders and accompanied by better training for those who work in secure centres, is absolutely important. I urge my noble friend the Minister to ensure that the impact of budget cuts does not impair training, which is where the cuts are more likely to be found and faced.

We had an interesting debate last week on the role of magistrates. It is clear that sentencing should never ignore the two other pillars, restoration and prevention, on which our justice system is based. Each of those pillars has its own role but each is dependent on the other two. Put together and effectively co-ordinated, they help in the problem of integrating the offenders in society. Of course, we must never underestimate young people who are violent and for whom secure settings are appropriate. When we examine the reoffending levels associated with youth custody, there must be something fundamentally wrong; three out of four are reconvicted within a year of completing their sentence.

Against this background, we must also recognise a striking improvement in the youth justice system: the frequency of reoffending by young people has been reduced since 2000; the number of young people coming into the youth justice system for the first time has reduced significantly in the past two years; and over our first 18 months, there has been a very significant decline in the number of young people under 18 being held in custody. This is a distinct youth justice strand, and my plea to the Minister is to ensure that whereas the current economic circumstances require the Government to make substantial reductions in public expenditure, it is not inconsistent with policy that these cuts do not impinge on the success of youth justice work.

We need great care and sensitivity to ensure that the system breaks the cycle of deprivation, otherwise children and young people from disadvantaged communities and neighbourhoods will be recycled again and again within the criminal justice system. We understand the Government’s dilemma; pressure on public spending requires the need to eliminate waste and invest in services that deliver value for money. Against that, we need to respond to the real difficulties faced by our children, particularly those from deprived or disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government alone cannot solve this problem. Communities have to come together to provide better life chances and skills and address the anti-social behaviour of their children. We need to build a carefully structured and adequately resourced youth justice system that will lessen the impact of crime in the community. In conclusion, we have a success story to tell; let us hope that budgetary cuts do not bring us back to the dysfunctional youth justice policies before the Youth Justice Board was established.