The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 received Royal assent. The Act gave the police and local agencies new powers to deal with anti-social behaviour, including: expanding the fixed penalty notices scheme to cover noise nuisance, truancy and graffiti, and apply it to young people aged 16-17; enabling schools, local authorities and youth offending teams to offer a package of support and sanctions for parents to help them address anti-social behaviour by their children; making it an offence to sell spray paints to under 16s and stronger powers for local authorities to tackle fly-tipping, graffiti and fly-posting; extending the powers of environmental health officers to shut down noisy establishments, such as pubs and clubs; and ensuring courts considered the impact of anti-social behaviour on the wider community in all housing possession cases.
Source: Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Text of Act | Home Office press release | LGA 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
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 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
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
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
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
A joint statement was issued by 13 children's charities calling for urgent changes to the Anti-Social Behaviour Bill. The charities said that, according to legal advice obtained by them, certain proposals in the Bill could breach human rights law - including police powers to disperse groups of two or more people, police powers to return a child under the age of 16 to their home in certain circumstances, and removal of reporting restrictions for children subject to anti-social behaviour orders.
Source: Press release 18.7.03, Children s Society (020 7841 4415)
Links: Children's Society press release | Legal opinion (pdf)
Date: 2003-Jul
The Scottish Executive published a consultation document on measures (similar to those in England) to combat anti-social behaviour, ahead of promised legislation. Proposals included extending anti-social behaviour orders to children aged 12-15; 'focused, visible' community reparation orders; parenting orders requiring parents to act in the best interests of their children; and extending the availability of electronic tagging of children. A children's charity attacked the proposals for failing to tackle the root causes of the problem.
Source: Putting our Communities First: Strategy for tackling anti-social behaviour, Scottish Executive, TSO (0870 606 5566) | Press release 26.6.03, Abelour Child Care Trust (0131 669 5190)
Links: Consultation document | SE press release | Aberlour Child Care Trust response
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 Bill to combat anti-social behaviour was given a third reading. The Bill proposed a range of measures, including a wider use of fixed-penalty notices (such as their application to children aged 16-17) and support and sanctions to enable parents to prevent and tackle anti-social behaviour by their children.
Source: House of Commons Hansard, Debate 24.6.03, columns 895-992, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard | Text of Bill
Date: 2003-Jun
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 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 joint committee of MPs and peers said that the use of the term 'anti-social behaviour' in the Anti-social Behaviour Bill - without any definition to limit its meaning- was an 'unacceptably vague' term to use when authorising an interference with a right under the Convention on Human Rights.
Source: Anti-social Behaviour Bill, Thirteenth Report (Session 2002-03), HL 120 and HC 766, Joint Committee on Human Rights (House of Lords and House of Commons), TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Text of Bill
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
Details were published of an Anti-social Behaviour Bill in Scotland. Key measures included provision for: an extension of anti-social behaviour orders to children under 16; parenting orders for use where parents 'refuse to take their responsibilities seriously'; a ban on the sale of spray paint to children under 16; and tagging for children under 16.
Source: Press release 28.5.03, Scottish Executive (0131 556 8400)
Links: Press release
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
A new community penalty was launched - the Intensive Control and Change Programme - designed to cut offending by young people aged 18-20. A pilot began in five areas. The programme would combine close monitoring and the restriction of liberty (for example through the use of a daily curfew to home address enforced by electronic tagging) with 25 hours a week of 'demanding and intensive' activity (including 18 hours a week at an offending behaviour programme, education, employment and training).
Source: Press release 3.4.03, Home Office (0870 000 1585)
Links: HO press release | Crime Concern press release | Guardian report
Date: 2003-Apr
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
The government published a White Paper (and introduced a Bill) containing proposals for tackling anti-social behaviour. Measures were proposed to develop a 'package of support and sanctions' to enable parents to prevent and tackle anti-social behaviour by their children; to widen the use of fixed-penalty notices (for example for noise nuisance, truancy, and graffiti) and apply them to young people aged 16-17; to make begging a recordable offence, with a community penalty after three convictions; and to make it easier for local authorities to fine noisy neighbours, end their right to buy , and evict them. The government also said it would consult on new powers to introduce housing benefit (but not child benefit) sanctions for anti-social behaviour. A children's charity said the proposals were more likely to push children towards a career of crime than guide them away from it, and attacked plans to extend curfew powers for children under 16. Homelessness campaigners said clamping down on begging would lead to an increase in petty crime.
Source: Respect and Responsibility: Taking a stand against anti-social behaviour, White Paper Cm 5778, Home Office, TSO (0870 600 5522) | Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, Home Office, TSO | House of Commons Hansard, Debate 12.3.03, columns 291-307, TSO | Press releases 12.3.03 and 27.3.03, Children s Society (020 7841 4415) | Press release 12.3.03, Centrepoint (020 7426 5300)
Links: White Paper (pdf) | Text of Bill | Hansard | HO press release | Guardian report | CRAE briefing paper (pdf) | Centrepoint press release | NHF press release (pdf)
Date: 2003-Mar
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 research report said that youth nuisance and anti-social behaviour are widespread problems frequently found in high-density, low-income areas, many of which suffer from multiple deprivation. It recommended a number of measures which crime and disorder reduction partnerships could take to tackle the problem.
Source: Judy Nixon, Sarah Blandy, Caroline Hunter, Kesia Reeve and Anwen Jones, Tackling Anti-social Behaviour in Mixed Tenure Areas, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (0870 1226 236)
Links: Report | Research summary
Date: 2003-Mar
A survey (conducted in January 2003) found that one in four young people aged 12-16 had been a victim of crime in the previous year. Of those who had been a victim of crime, the most common offences reported were violence and assault (54 per cent), and theft (43 per cent).
Source: Crime Against 12 to 16-Year Olds, Victim Support (020 7735 9166)
Links: 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
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
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
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
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