Enforcement. Non-negotiable support. Prevention. These three principles are the central planks of the much-awaited Youth Crime Action Plan.
The £100m plan mixed reannouncements with new measures, such as giving the public a say on reparation work by offenders on community service and penalties for parents if their child fails to complete a sentence. However, although the plan was widely welcomed by the children's sector, some had reservations about whether it goes far enough.
Andrew Neilsen, assistant director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, says the plan is a disappointment. "They've parked a lot of interesting ideas on the backburner, despite a long consultation process feeding into the plan," he says. Neilsen says the current political climate could mean the government held back.
"They haven't got the political credit and confidence to spend on a concerted campaign of explaining to the public: 'We want to go down this road'," he says. "Ed Balls showed signs of it initially but it has been toned down. When this plan was announced it was a new government and I'm sure that if the Gordon Brown bounce had continued we'd have a different plan."
Lack of details
But Bob Ashford, head of prevention at the Youth Justice Board, denies the plan is a missed opportunity. "Whatever area you're interested in there will always be things you don't like - there are things I'd like to have seen in there," he says.
The news that local authorities will be responsible for funding and commissioning the education of young offenders in custody was broadly welcomed, despite a lack of details about how this would work in practice (CYP Now, 16-22 July).
A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families says it is considering its options. "There are challenges because many young people in custody are held in establishments in different local authorities to where they usually live," she says. "Local authorities who are tasked with this new responsibility will receive funding to reflect this."
But Martin Narey, chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's and former head of HM Prison Service, says having the prison's local authority commissioning education is the only way it will work. "There's no alternative," he says. "If you go to a child prison you can find young people from roughly 50 local authorities. If they're all doing their own commissioning for education it would be unmanageable. Commissioning is about practicality, about how many teachers you need, and that would just be managerially impossible."
Penelope Gibbs, director of the Prison Reform Trust's strategy to reduce child and youth imprisonment, says the plan holds some good initiatives, such as the expansion of the resettlement and aftercare programmes. "The publishing of the plan is a first step towards what I hope will be a radical change to the youth justice system - which is needed."
However, she has some reservations: "We have concerns about the punitive tone, such as naming 16-year-olds convicted of crime. What is the evidence base for this reducing the numbers of young people committing crimes?"
Punitive tone
Debra Clothier, national policy development manager at crime reduction charity Nacro, also feels the plan's punitive tone detracts from a lot of the positive proposals. She adds that the government must not lose sight of current good work.
"They keep talking about innovation and, although we must support new ideas, people are doing some good things long term and we need to support them. It's not just about pilot projects," she says.
David Chater, head of policy and external affairs at charity Rainer Crime Concern, welcomes the commitment to putting youth offending team (YOT) workers in police stations. "We piloted this idea five years ago with Essex Police," he says. "They tracked the 400 young people from the pilot over a two-year period and none of them got into trouble again. If the government roll it out on a larger scale it could have a massive impact."
The plan did not hand responsibility for YOTs to children's trusts, which looked on the cards a few weeks ago. Ashford says trusts are not quite ready for this step. "In terms of taking the lot it's not clear for any trust," he says. "Each is very different and in different stages of development. To give them total responsibility for youth crime would be a very dangerous thing to do."
But Paul Moore, strategic director for youth at children's charity NCH, disagrees: "We've seen the advantages of the Scottish system where social work and youth justice are in the same department. It just works in providing a robust challenge to youth offending and increasing the level of support for children."
YOUTH CRIME ACTION PLAN: KEY PROPOSALS
- Local authorities will fund and commission education in youth custody, bringing young offenders into mainstream education for the first time
- A reinforced role for children's services in overseeing resettlement, which includes having a nominated senior officer in charge of provision
- Expansion of the resettlement and aftercare project
- Permanent exclusion of young people from school will automatically trigger a common assessment framework assessment of needs
- A consultation on local agencies pooling budgets within children's trusts
- Visit www.cypnow.co.uk/doc to download the action plan.
