Experts question the introduction of youth conditional cautions

Preparations are under way for a major shake-up of the way young offenders are dealt with. From next spring, police and youth offending teams (YOTs) will be able to use youth conditional cautions to deal with young people who may otherwise have been taken to court for a low-level offence.

Alongside so-called simple cautions, youth conditional cautions will replace the existing system of reprimands and final warnings. The youth conditional caution will be the highest level of out-of court disposal available to police, and is being introduced to give police officers and YOTs more discretion in dealing with young people who offend.

But how regularly and in what context they will be used is unclear, after it emerged that just 173 youth conditional cautions were handed out across three major police forces during a two-year trial.

Tim Bateman, criminologist at the University of Bedfordshire, says the popularity of the sanction is likely to depend on the strength of government guidelines on its use.

But he warns that the flexible nature of the sanction could create a number of worrying scenarios. Youth conditional cautions can contain a number of conditions. For example, a caution could require a young person to make amends, such as writing a letter of apology. Equally, the conditional cautions can be used to require a young person to attend a referral programme, pay a fine or undertake unpaid work.

Bateman says the punitive aspects of youth conditional cautions could be seen to be bypassing the court system and handing additional power to those dealing with offences.

“There is a danger of undermining due process and a potential for usurping the role of the court in deciding punishment,” he says. “Civil liberties groups are also concerned that young people could be punished for something without having the chance to seek legal advice or a court hearing.”

He also fears youth conditional cautions may lead to more serious sentences for young people, because if they breach an order, they could be prosecuted, whereas they would have received different treatment for the original crime had they not been given the order in the first place.

“If you impose conditions, which young people are not typically good at keeping to, you may just be delaying the situation,” he says. “If they don’t comply, you end up prosecuting for the original offence.”

Given the complexity of issuing youth conditional cautions, some professionals believe that YOTs could end up using the sanction more frequently than the police.

But Gareth Jones, vice chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, says it is likely to be a labour-intensive option for YOTs as well.

“You need to have someone to implement whatever the conditions are,” he says. “It could be a simple case of saying that a child causing damage must repair it. But who supervises them? Or should they pay for someone else to do it? If that is the case, then the ability to pay comes into it. What happens if they don’t pay?”

Despite this, assistant chief constable Kevin Wilkins, lead on youth justice for the Association of Chief Police Officers, argues that cautions will increase the options available to police and prosecutors in determining the most appropriate course of action for individual young people.

Youth conditional cautions are “a significant step forward in youth justice”, Wilkins says, with the potential to “prevent offending and reoffending, while improving victim satisfaction”. He says an online training package is being developed with the National Policing Improvement Agency, which will provide guidance to frontline officers and be adapted for use by YOTs and police custody staff.