Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the level of (a) awareness and (b) understanding among magistrates of the effect of maturity on offending behaviour.

Although maturity is not assessed by Liaison and Diversion services, the National Probation Service (NPS) views maturity assessments as a critical component of an offender assessment within a Pre Sentence Report (PSR) as articulated in Probation Instruction 04/2016: Determining PSR.

In addition, the NPS are working with the Magistrates’ Association to develop a suite of short videos regarding the need to consider maturity at each step in the Criminal Justice System to raise sentencers awareness and understanding of the effect of maturity on offending. This is targeted at the Judiciary, Crown Prosecution Service, Defence and Probation staff in Court.

The NPS has also produced guidance to support court report writers, which highlights how to make more effective sentencing proposals to support those with low maturity to engage more effectively in community disposals.

Sentencing guidelines developed by the independent Sentencing Council also list ‘age and/or lack of maturity’ as a mitigating factor which sentencers can take into account when deciding on an appropriate sentence. This is also reflected in the Equal Treatment Bench Book (published February 2021) the main source of guidance for sentencers for dealing with individuals with protected characteristics. The Judicial College also provides magistrates with training on offender maturity as part of its modules on sentencing guidelines.

The NPS are also working to ensure that court staff have a clear understanding of both the impact of low maturity on offending behaviour and the consequences of disrupted maturity on recidivism. A training video has been produced by the Evidence Based Practice Team in the NPS, outlining the indicators and the means of assessment of maturity for those aged 18 – 25.