An audit report said that around 75 per cent of children in Scotland on statutory supervision (for reasons which included offending) appeared to be receiving the required level of service from councils: but hundreds were not. Most councils were providing the required levels of supervision: but the evidence pointed to problems in some. Around half the children on supervision did not see their social workers often.
Source: Dealing with Offending by Young People: Follow-up report, Audit Scotland for Accounts Commission and Auditor General (0131 477 1234)
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | SE press release
Date: 2003-Nov
Leading children s charities and justice organisations called for a fundamental review of the youth justice system. They highlighted the disparity between the treatment of children in trouble with the law and that of children in the welfare system, and showed how the justice system often treated children more harshly than adults.
Source: Geoff Monaghan, Pam Hibbert and Sharon Moore, Children in Trouble: Time for change, Barnardo s (01268 520224)
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | Barnardo's press release | CRAE press release (pdf)
Date: 2003-Nov
The government issued a consultation document (a companion to the Green Paper on child protection, Every Child Matters) setting out possible reforms to the youth justice system. The key proposals were to strengthen parenting interventions; improve understanding of trials and trial preparation; manage remandees better in the community; establish a simpler sentencing structure with more flexible interventions; run community intensive supervision and surveillance as the main response to repeat and serious offending; introduce a more graduated progression between secure, open and community facilities; and improve youth justice skills and organisation.
Source: Youth Justice: Next steps, Home Office (0870 000 1585)
Links: Consultation document (pdf) | Youth Justice Board press release
Date: 2003-Sep
A report criticised the overuse of child detention as 'damaging and counterproductive'. It challenged the assumption that locking up children could cut crime: the evidence suggested that it would be necessary to lock up an extra 1,140 children each year to achieve a mere 1 per cent fall in the juvenile offending rate.
Source: Counting the Cost: Reducing child imprisonment, National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (020 7582 6500)
Links: Summary (pdf) | NACRO press release | Guardian report | Community Care report
Date: 2003-Sep
Research into young people s experiences of crime found that more than half thought that crime paid. Peer pressure was seen as the most common reason for young people turning to crime (41 per cent), followed closely by boredom (35 per cent). Around 80 per cent were worried about becoming a victim of crime themselves.
Source: Youth Insight: Focus on crime, Norwich Union (08703 666864) and Crime Concern
Links: Report (pdf) | Crime Concern press release
Date: 2003-Sep
One research study found that 'On Track' services were reported as having had a positive impact on children and their families. A second study focused on the extent of community engagement, empowerment and partnership, together with the extent of engagement in schools, in On Track programme areas: the authors concluded that the programme had contributed to the social infrastructure through new and enhanced services, and had developed social capital. A third study evaluated the success of On Track programmes in engaging with 'hard to reach' groups. A fourth study mapped and described a range of initiatives which might impact on young children, whether or not they were specific targets for the interventions involved, with the aim of contextualising programmes such as On Track. (On Track is a crime prevention programme, based on multiple interventions, focusing on children aged 4-12 and their families in 22 deprived areas in England and two in Wales.)
Source: Mary Atkinson, Kay Kinder and Paul Doherty, On Track: Qualitative Study of the Early Impacts of Services, Research Report 473, Department for Education and Skills (0845 602 2260) | Carl Parsons, Brian Austin, Hazel Bryan, Jean Hailes and William Stow, On Track Thematic Report: Community and Schools Engagement, Research Report 474, Department for Education and Skills | Paul Doherty, Melanie Hall and Kay Kinder, On Track Thematic Report: Assessment, Referral and Hard-to-Reach Groups, Research Report 475, Department for Education and Skills | Peter McCarthy, James Whitman, Janet Walker and Mike Coombes, Targeting Initiatives: Diverting children and young people from crime and antisocial behaviour, Research Report 476, Department for Education and Skills
Links: Report 473 (pdf) | Brief 473 (pdf) | Report 474 (pdf) | Brief 474 (pdf) | Report 475 (pdf) | Brief 475 (pdf) | Report 476 (pdf) | Brief 476 (pdf)
Date: 2003-Sep
A new book provided an account of recent changes to the youth justice system in England and Wales, focusing on the attempted introduction of elements of restorative justice through the implementation of referral orders and youth offender panels.
Source: Adam Crawford and Tim Newburn, Youth Offending and Restorative Justice: Implementing reform in youth justice, Willan Publishing (01884 840337)
Links: Summary
Date: 2003-Aug
A report argued that programmes aiming to change young offenders, and those that supported victims, needed to be rethought because the people targeted were often the same. It also suggested that teenage boys had a natural tendency towards violent and aggressive behaviour.
Source: David Smith and Lesley McAra, The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, Economic and Social Research Council (01793 413000)
Links: ESRC press release | Observer report
Date: 2003-Aug
The High Court ruled that the use of segregation (solitary confinement) for children in prison was contrary to prison service policy and the law (though not a breach of human rights). The case was brought on behalf of a young offender aged 17 who was taken to a segregation unit and locked up for 23 hours a day, with access to a yard for one hour a day.
Source: Press release 17.7.03, Howard League for Penal Reform (020 7249 7373)
Links: Howard League press release
Date: 2003-Jul
The Youth Justice Board said that more effective work to stop re-offending had been made possible as the number of young people sent to custody had fallen, and as new intensively supervised community sentences had been taken up by the courts.
Source: Gaining Ground in the Community: Annual Review 2002/03, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (0870 120 7400)
Links: Report (pdf) | YJB press release
Date: 2003-Jul
From 14 July 2003 the home detention curfew scheme was extended to offenders aged under 18. Under the scheme, certain prisoners serving sentences of between 3 months and 4 years could be released up to 90 days early (depending on sentence length) under an electronic curfew.
Source: Letter 7.7.03, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (020 7271 3033)
Links: Letter (pdf)
Date: 2003-Jul
A report said that 1 in 10 young offenders had deliberately hurt themselves, and 11 per cent admitted that they had contemplated suicide.
Source: Speaking Out, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (0870 120 7400)
Links: YJB press release
Date: 2003-Jul
A study of youth gangs identified three distinct types: 'economic' gangs (highly professional and linked to major crime), 'peer' gangs (loose collectives of youths involved in nuisance crimes), and the intermediate 'precursory' gangs.
Source: Ian Joseph, Serious Youth Conflict, Action Research Consultants (020 8532 8245)
Links: Guardian report
Date: 2003-Jun
A new book provided a critical overview of the youth justice system. It explored the options for positive intervention open to practitioners and service providers, and set out a detailed agenda for improvements in the system at all levels.
Source: Roger Smith, Youth Justice: Ideas, policy, practice, Willan Publishing (01884 840337)
Links: Summary
Date: 2003-Jun
A joint committee of MPs and peers said that criminalising young children, by a relatively low age of criminal responsibility, was not the best way to ensure that they turned away from a life of crime. It recommended an increase in the age of criminal responsibility to 12. It also reiterated the conclusion of a previous report that the protection and promotion of children's rights would be best advanced by the establishment of a children's commissioner in England.
Source: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Tenth Report (Session 2002-03), HL 117 and HC 81, Joint Committee on Human Rights (House of Lords and House of Commons), TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2003-Jun
A briefing described the available research evidence on the nature of youth offending, and its causes among the general population of young people, and reviewed what might help when working with children in need.
Source: Ann Hagell, Understanding and Challenging Youth Offending, Research Briefing 8, Social Care Institute for Excellence/Department of Health (020 7089 6840), Research in Practice, and Making Research Count
Links: Briefing (pdf)
Date: 2003-May
A report criticised the government for failing in its own stated policy aim to limit the number of children being sentenced to custody. It also argued that levels of child imprisonment in England and Wales constituted a continued breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Source: A Failure of Justice: Reducing child imprisonment, National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (020 7582 6500)
Links: NACRO press release
Date: 2003-Apr
An evaluation of a pilot scheme involving time limits in youth courts concluded that the limits are an effective means of reducing delay, particularly in longer cases, and also facilitate the human rights of both defendant and victim. It said that two of the time limits (though not that relating to sentencing) should be rolled out nationally for youth cases. (The pilot started on 1 November 1999 in six pilot areas: it involved limits on the time between arrest and first appearance in youth court, between first appearance in youth court and first day of trial, and between conviction and sentence.)
Source: Joanna Shapland et al., Evaluation of Statutory Time Limit Pilot Schemes in the Youth Court, Online Report 21/03, Home Office (web publication only) | House of Commons Hansard, Written Ministerial Statement 28.3.03, columns 26-28WS, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report (pdf) | Hansard
Date: 2003-Mar
A new Youth Justice Agency for Northern Ireland was launched. From 1 April 2003 it will replace the Juvenile Justice Board. Its task will be to introduce a range of innovative community-based schemes to divert young people away from crime and deal with those who offend.
Source: Press release 31.3.03, Northern Ireland Office (028 9052 0700)
Links: Press release
Date: 2003-Mar
Researchers said that early indications are that crime by young people decreased significantly more in 'Summer Plus' areas than in the rest of England. (Summer Plus was a programme of additional support for children and young people aged 8-19 who were most at risk of becoming involved in crime, which ran in the summer of 2002.)
Source: CRG Research Ltd, An Evaluation of Summer Plus: A Cross Departmental Approach to Preventing Youth Crime, Research Report 392, Department for Education and Skills (0845 602 2260)
Links: Report (pdf) | Brief (pdf)
Date: 2003-Feb
A report said that reconviction rates for juveniles were cut by 22.5 per cent overall between 1997 and 2001 (compared to a target 5 per cent reduction by 2004). The government said that the new reprimand and final warning scheme in particular had helped: reprimands resulted in a 47 per cent drop in convictions, and final warnings resulted in a 19.3 per cent reduction, compared to the previous system of repeat cautions for young offenders.
Source: Debbie Jennings, One Year Juvenile Reconviction Rates: First quarter of 2001 cohort, Online Report 18/03, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report (pdf) | Press release
Date: 2003-Feb
The Youth Justice Board's 'intensive surveillance and supervision programme' will be rolled out across the whole of England and Wales from January 2004 (the programme currently covers three quarters of England and Wales).
Source: Press release 4.2.03, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (020 7271 3033)
Links: YJB press release
Date: 2003-Feb
Researchers documented the prevalence of substance use and offending among a sample of 293 young people who were clients of youth offending teams in England and Wales. Most had committed multiple types of offences, repeatedly. Substance use was also very high: over 85 per cent had used cannabis, alcohol and tobacco, although fewer than 20 per cent had used heroin or crack cocaine.
Source: Richard Hammersley, Louise Marsland and Marie Reid, Substance Use by Young Offenders: Impact of the normalisation of drug use in the early years of the 21st century, Research Study 261, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Study (pdf) | Findings (pdf)
Date: 2003-Feb
Organised sports and cultural activities for young people in deprived areas in the summer of 2002 helped to reduce street crime and robbery, new figures for 'Splash extra' programmes showed.
Source: Press release 13.1.03, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (020 7271 3033)
Links: YJB press release | DCMS press release
Date: 2003-Jan
New research for the Youth Justice Board showed that the six-month intensive supervision and surveillance programme (ISSP) offers more direct engagement with young offenders - something which, the Board said, cannot be achieved during short and disruptive spells in young offenders institutions.
Source: Press release 27.1.03, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (020 7271 3033)
Links: YJB press release
See also: Journal of Social Policy Volume 31/1, Digest 121, paragraph 6.4
Date: 2003-Jan
Researchers said that street crime is often fuelled by a rapidly changing consumer culture, such as the demand for mobile phones.
Source: Marian FitzGerald, Jan Stockdale and Chris Hale, Young People & Street Crime, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (020 7271 3033)
Links: Report (pdf) | YJB press release
Date: 2003-Jan
Researchers found that the numbers of young people coming before the courts for the first time are falling dramatically, but that those who do so are far more likely to become persistent offenders than 20 years ago. Cautioning was found to be successful in ensuring that only the most difficult juvenile offenders face the court system.
Source: Keith Soothill and Brian Francis, Criminal Careers: Understanding Temporal Changes in Offending Behaviour, Economic and Social Research Council (01793 413000)
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary (pdf) | Press release
Date: 2003-Jan