Young Offenders

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and it is a great honour to speak about this important issue. This debate is informed by my visit during recess week to Barton Moss secure children’s home and Hindley young offenders institution. I pay full tribute to their work and to the obvious dedication and humanity of all the staff whom I met in both institutions. The Prison Reform Trust has also been invaluable in helping me think through what I intend to say.

It is fair to say that in few areas of public policy is the research more voluminous, more detailed or more comprehensive than in youth justice. There is always one more report to be read, one more document to be studied in detail or one more set of figures. I welcome the fact that the coalition Government and the Opposition have stressed their commitment to the principle of early intervention during the foundation years from nought to five, but I am concerned that a cohort of young people out there are already on the conveyor belt to crime, as it has been termed.

In preparing for this debate, I was pleased to reread the pamphlet issued in 2002 by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin) that first set out the idea of a conveyor belt to crime. I was working in the Conservative research department when it was published, and it is a useful reminder that those were not the wilderness years we often felt them to be at the time. The pamphlet indicated to me that the conveyor belt does not stop at age five but runs right through to age 17.

Although much good work is being done on early intervention and preventing children from stepping on to the conveyor belt to crime, we must recognise that there is a significant policy challenge in what is almost a lost generation—those aged between four and 17 who may already be on that conveyor belt and who have already missed the benefits of Sure Start, family nurse partnerships and other initiatives. It was stressed to me at Barton Moss secure children’s home that the four to 10 age group is particularly important for policy makers to grapple with. We concentrate on the foundation years and the 15 to 18 age group, but a great deal does not always happen in between. I urge Government and think tanks to address the four to 10 age group.

Whenever we discuss criminal justice, we must ask big questions. What is the criminal justice system for? What is the relative balance between punishment and rehabilitation? Crucially, where is the victim in all this? Although it is tempting to embark on a great philosophical exploration of criminal justice, I will focus on a slightly narrower field of play, starting from shorter sentences.

I was struck when one of the professionals whom I met the week before last said to me, “Well, if they are in for eight weeks, at least we can sort out their teeth.” That might seem a slightly odd thing to say—surely the purpose of incarceration is not to address issues of oral hygiene—but the point is much more fundamental. Many of the people who enter the youth justice system have had chaotic lifestyles; many have never seen a dentist or engaged with health services; and many have dropped out of the education system. Even a short sentence can offer a brief opportunity to address some of those underlying problems.

It might be argued that many in the youth justice system have experienced a perfect storm. According to the Prison Reform Trust, 76% of those in the criminal justice system have an absent father, 51% come from deprived households, 39% have appeared on the child protection register, 28% have witnessed domestic violence, 14% have a parent with a physical, mental health or learning disability, 48% have been excluded from school, 31% engage in substance use, 20% engage in self-harm, 17% have a formal mental health diagnosis and 11% have attempted suicide.

I read out that litany not merely to emphasise the relative disadvantage faced by those in the youth justice system but to make a more fundamental and frightening point. The structure of our youth justice system seems to make it more likely that the most troubled in our society will be given custodial sentences, because their needs are thought to be far too complex to be dealt with in the community.

[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern that some young people suffering from Asperger’s syndrome do not necessarily get the treatment and diagnosis that they need, but are simply put down as mischievous, badly behaved troublemakers?

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend anticipates much of my speech. We certainly lack a fundamental ability to assess the needs of young offenders when they enter the youth justice system and determine how best to address those needs. They therefore end up in the secure estate without having been assessed properly, because the tools are not present in the system, which is a great worry that I shall discuss later. The conveyor belt appears to be constructed almost to minimise effective exit points before reaching the secure estate. That should be of great concern, because disadvantaged children face particular problems in both the courts and custody.

It goes without saying that reoffending by juvenile offenders is extremely high. Some 75% of those released from custody and 68% of those given community sentences or other disposals in the community reoffend within a year. Why is that? Undoubtedly, some of them commit crimes and are bad people, but for a significant number, the ineffective screening process and lack of appropriate tools for identifying behavioural and communication difficulties almost set them up to fail.

I welcome, for example, the Minister’s proposed amendments to the Bail Act 1976, which would remove the option of remand for young people who were unlikely to receive a custodial sentence, but I would also welcome an assurance from him that the alternatives will adequately protect vulnerable children. When I visited Barton Moss secure children’s home, I was struck by the fact that many children are remanded there on bail for their own protection and welfare, even though they might not end up receiving a custodial sentence. There must be no presumption against a custodial remand.

Equally, when offenders reach the youth court, they find disadvantage once again. Little is done to screen young offenders for mental illness, learning disability or speech, language and communication difficulties. It is no use imposing a disposal of any sort if the young person cannot comprehend the punishment or interpret what is occurring to them in what can be a very off-putting setting. I admit that I have never visited a youth court, but I can imagine the feelings of a nervous child entering that formal situation, uncertain of the process and of what is occurring.

I welcome the previous Government’s introduction of a witness intermediary scheme to help witnesses with speech and language problems or communication difficulties better to present their case in court, but I must ask why such assistance is not also afforded to defendants suffering from similar problems. Does a child’s impairment increase the possibility of custody, because it makes it more likely that they will fail to comply with a youth rehabilitation order, or because there is a lack of an appropriate youth justice programme that might enable compliance? If so, it is a damning indictment of the system. Is it really the aim of our society that eloquent children should be more able to plead for one last chance?

When children get to custody, they have what is called the Asset form, which is the primary document for interpreting children’s needs. Those forms are critical to the development of appropriate care and sentence plans, but they are structurally flawed, because they fail to identify speech, language and communication difficulties. They impair identification of individual problems and make it harder to address those difficulties during the time in custody, however short or long it may be. The inadequacy of Asset means under-reporting of those problems, and I believe that they are taken insufficiently seriously within public policy circles.

We should recognise that, thanks to Lord Bradley’s report, improvements have been made to the way in which mental health is addressed, but the situation is by no means perfect. Indeed, it is a success only relative to the absolute failure in terms of other needs. The consequences of that failure in screening and appropriate identification are severe. As I have said, we are setting young offenders up to fail, which manifests itself in the rapid increase in the numbers of young offenders who are returned to remand for breach of conditions. For example, someone might be given what is still called an ASBO—an antisocial behaviour order—and told that they cannot enter a particular road. However, their grandmother might live on the other side of that road and, if they cross it to see her and somebody spots them and reports them for it, that is a breach. It might get them sent back to a young offenders institution, but it seems to me to be a technical breach. It might even be that the young person cannot comprehend that to get to their grandmother’s house, they would be breaching an ASBO in the first place. If they do not receive appropriate care and an appropriate sentence plan, and if they have a basic lack of understanding of the process in which they are engaged and are incapable of engaging with the interventions provided for them, we are setting them up to fail.

The story is the same when they get to custody. Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, has said:

“Prisons can offer a short window of opportunity for the majority of young people who end up in custody…That is an opportunity that must not be wasted.”

I am concerned that it is being wasted in some instances. For example, it is critical that children who might have dropped out of the education system and have not acquired the basic skills of literacy and numeracy are re-equipped with them, if they are to fulfil a purposeful life once they are released. However, it is clear from written answers provided to me by the Minister that the number of such young people achieving literacy qualifications dropped from 2,104 in 2006-07 to just 1,350 in 2009-10. Similarly, the number completing numeracy courses dropped from 2,680 in 2006-07 to 1,813 in 2009-10. I doubt that that is simply because of a decrease in the numbers in those institutions. There is clearly something more structural going on, and I would welcome some more information on why it might be occurring.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good contribution. On his last point, does he recognise—I say this as a former Minister with responsibility for skills and training in prisons—that, although many young people are making progress in our prisons, we were not able to introduce schemes such as Building Schools for the Future in prison greatly to improve facilities? Does he also agree that it is important for young people on short sentences that their integration back into, usually, further education in the community happens in a real way?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution, which raises a wider point about who owns the child when they progress through the criminal justice system. One of my concerns is that when someone transfers from their home local authority to the secure estate, their home council effectively washes its hands of them. When they have gone through pupil referral units—or educational diversity, as we call it in Blackpool—and then find themselves in a young offenders institution, it is almost like starting again. They are then released and, yet again, they start again when they are returned to their local authority. Again, there is a lack of cohesion.

I should also like to deal with the issue of the prison escort records of young offenders at young offenders institutions. I have been informed in a letter from the Ministry of Justice that the initial assessment of a prisoner’s language skills is made by the custody manager who completes the escort record, but there has been no national review of the quality or accuracy of those reception language assessments. There is no obvious evidence of the use of a tool that is approved by the professional bodies.

I do not believe that in custodial settings we have enough speech and language therapists. Speech and language intervention at Red Bank secure children’s home reduces the need for physical restraints from two to three times a day to just two times a week, but only 15% of youth offending teams have access to speech and language therapy. I am particularly concerned that the changes to prison health care and the re-assignment to the Department of Health risk worsening prison health care. I am concerned that a primary care trust in which a young offenders institution is located now has to take responsibility for all the young offenders in that institution. It is causing problems in relation to securing funding for the health care within that institution. Will the Minister comment on that and explain why the change has occurred and how he hopes to protect those in young offenders institutions who are in need of specialist health provision that PCTs now appear reluctant to fund?

We need to provide more exits in the community from the so-called conveyor belt. As I have said, I welcome the fact that we are trying to avoid the use of remand. I support the concept of local authorities bearing more of the burden of responsibility for the cost of youth justice in their community—a child from Blackpool does not cease to be a child from Blackpool when he is in Hindley young offenders institution—which was an idea raised by the recent Green Paper. Payment by results is another frequently cited intervention, but I am not sure that it is fully understood yet. I would welcome some reassurance that the schemes on offer are not merely a case of helping the low-hanging fruit first to demonstrate that the process works, but are focusing on those who are hardest to help.

Lord Bradley’s review, which I mentioned earlier, recommended that all youth offending teams have a suitable, qualified mental health worker with responsibility for making appropriate referrals. Child and adolescent mental health services are a particularly malfunctioning part of our health care system. The likelihood of CAMHS taking on a 15 to 17-year-old who presents for the first time with mental health problems is, I am afraid, pretty close to zero. Their view is that they will have to wait to be dealt with by the adult mental health care system. Structurally, that cannot be what is intended by any Government of any political persuasion. A child and adolescent mental health service has the word “adolescent” in it, which surely applies to the 15 to 17 age group.

I should also like to focus on the issue of transitional services for children entering adulthood, a period for which, in my view, there is no real age limit, because young people develop into adults at different ages. The issue will be covered in the forthcoming special educational needs Green Paper, but I hope that, just as early intervention was the public policy fad—if I may call it that—of the past decade, the transition phase will become the fad of the coming decade. It has been sorely neglected, which has had a damaging impact on the quality of public policy in this country.

We also have to consider the impact of arrangements for the release of young offenders. It is not acceptable to just hand them a travel warrant and £46.75 upon their release. I have suggested to the Minister that we increase that sum, because it is not enough. When I market-tested that with the professionals I met, it was not supported as much as I thought it might be. The point was made that, if we give them more money, cash in hand, we cannot control what they spend it on. Those professionals would far rather focus on handing out vouchers to meet the specific needs that those young offenders will face in their first 48 hours or so, rather than a cash payout.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful contribution. Does he agree that one of the most useful things that can be given to young offenders when they leave an institution is somewhere to live, and that ensuring that they have secure accommodation is one of the best ways of ensuring that they do no reoffend?

[Paul Maynard]

That is perhaps an example of our target culture. We measure the number of young offenders on release who have accommodation available to them, but we do not measure the quality or sustainability of that accommodation. There could be an address to go to, but that might be someone’s sofa. For the purposes of ticking the box, that sofa is regarded as a long-term solution, and I do not believe that it always is.

I would like to touch briefly on the issue of doli incapax, which is the pretentious term for considering the age of criminal responsibility. This is something to which I have given a great deal of thought, because most in the criminal justice system focus on the need to raise the age of criminal responsibility to the age of 14. I have thought closely about this. There is clearly a humanitarian instinct lying at the root of that proposal. My concern is that what we are actually discussing is nomenclature, rather than outcomes. I realised at Barton Moss that many of the children it looks after in that setting—that secure setting behind a locked gate—are not there because they have entered the youth justice system. They are there because their councils have put them there for welfare reasons. If the age of criminal responsibility is 12, and we allow councils’ welfare departments to look after those children, the end result might be no different. I have a severe concern that, by leaving that to a council’s social services welfare department, we will lose the many safeguards that are in the criminal justice system to ensure that the law is adhered to. As we all know, in tragic case after tragic case, social services are becoming more risk-averse in how they treat young people. That well-meaning recommendation might well have perverse consequences and I would argue strongly against it.

It is true that we should celebrate every small progress that is made by a child. Merely attending two consecutive appointments can be a triumph for some. We have to stress, however, that the youth justice system is never the place to try to address all of society’s ills, as tempting as that might be. The youth justice system is perhaps a place that can be used to catch up and to address that which has been overlooked, but we have to start, as a nation, to accept that more must be done in the community. I realise that the Minister is shifting the Youth Justice Board back in-house. I would welcome an assurance from him that youth justice will remain the responsibility of a separate unit, within the Ministry of Justice, dedicated solely to the under-18s. The Youth Justice Board has issued many useful reports that have underlined the inadequacies of various stages of the youth justice process, and it would be a great shame to lose that independent voice. It is still important that, whoever we are and whatever our organisation, we still speak truth unto power. I hope that the civil servants responsible for youth justice do not recoil from speaking truth unto the Minister, where that is required.

Equally, if all exit points from the conveyor belt to crime, which I keep referring to, are bottlenecked around the secure estate, that risks still being a dumping ground for all the children whose problems cannot really be accommodated within society at the moment. In my view, they should be accommodated within society. We should be able to cope with those who have complexity of need. It is a damning indictment of this country that, to address those problems, we have to send children to a secure estate, lock them away from society, and say that society does not want to have to deal with those problems.

I have been appalled by some of the populism I have heard in political debate about criminal justice in this House. It deeply disappoints me. The dignity of the individual is compromised by many of the conditions in the youth justice system. The victim, as well, fails to receive satisfaction. Satisfaction is the crucial word, because punishment has two elements: retribution and satisfaction. Retribution comes in the form of incarceration, which is a deprivation of liberty and freedom. That is where the victim receives recompense for the crimes done to them. Satisfaction, however, is just as important, because satisfaction is where there is recompense for the wider community whose laws have been offended. The key part of satisfaction is that we reduce the likelihood of reoffending—when a young person leaves the youth justice system, they are less likely to reoffend, and more likely to have a purposeful life in the community whose laws they offended in the first place.

If our youth justice system makes it more likely that the most vulnerable receive the harshest punishments, we, as a nation, must examine our consciences. Community solutions, at the appropriate moment, are the way forward. Equally, I recognise that to be done properly, those solutions must be intensive, with the costs up front. They are expensive, and I recognise that, but as the Audit Commission report in 2004 made clear, if only one in 10 of those who went into the youth justice system was catered for properly, the savings for the public purse could be as much as £100 million. We are back to the old argument that early intervention saves money, which requires ambition on the part of Ministers and the bravery to take decisions where the costs are up front, but the benefits are long term. I urge the Minister to continue on his well-meaning path towards trying to improve the youth justice system.