We need a community approach to custody

After all, when spaces are under pressure, it becomes impossible to locate appropriate custodial placements. And within each institution, aspirations regarding the quality of provision (through, for example, education and recreation) are put in serious jeopardy.

Having been linked in various ways to the youth justice system for more than 30 years, I have refined a personal perspective that, in short, concerns "custody in the community" on the one hand, and "a community in custody" on the other.

Two fundamental points inform these views. Community sentences have often been too lax to make any difference to the direction of young people's lives (or to their thinking) and, arguably of even greater significance, they have inspired little confidence in either the courts or the general public. Hence the calls for, and sometimes use of, custody, when community sentences lack credibility. Yet the second point is the abject uselessness of custody, especially overcrowded custody. Reconviction rates are appalling and attention to wider issues in young people's lives is limited. Putting children under lock and key and taking away all self-determination is largely counter-productive. There may be a few requiring discipline each second and every yard, but I am not persuaded this is required of all young people sentenced to detention.