Justice Committee Report: Youth Justice

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Scottish system of children’s reporters and children’s panels has been proven over many years. We still have some lessons to learn from it in England and Wales.

Looking more widely at sentencing, we recommend a threshold to enshrine in legislation the principle that only the most serious and prolific young offenders should be placed in custody. We recommend that the custody budget should be devolved to a more local level, so that a local decision can be made about investing in effective alternatives to custody. We want to build confidence in community sentences by giving magistrates and judges more feedback on the outcomes of their sentencing decisions. We also want to take more action to reduce the number of people who breach the terms of their community sentences and address the problem that there is a large number of young black men in custody, far beyond their proportion in the population.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

What was the Committee’s view on the fact that if we send only prolific offenders to prison, they will clearly have done a lot of crime before they get there? What consideration was given to the short, sharp shock treatment as a way of dealing with people right at the beginning?

[Sir Alan Beith]

The idea that we can sort out the problems of a young person who is committing serial, prolific crimes through a process that does not take much time is just a mistake. It takes time to address these problems. We have looked, for example, at the Willow unit at Hindley and a whole series of ways of trying to turn round the lives of young people. I am afraid that the short, sharp shock is an illusion. There is no proven way to deal with prolific young offenders other than by giving them a lot of attention over a significant period.