Speaking at a parliamentary committee hearing, youth justice minister Andrew Selous said the coalition is considering creating dedicated jails for prisoners aged 18 to 30 to ensure younger, often first-time, offenders do not mix with more hardened, older criminals.
As an initiative to cut stubbornly high reoffending rates, the plan might have merit, but it is tackling the problem too far down the line. Experts say – and research backs this up – that young people start along the road to offending long before they end up in prison. One of the biggest indicators of a child ending up in prison when they are older is having a parent (usually a father) who serves a prison term.
Charities have long warned about the risk factor to children of having an incarcerated parent, calling for more support to be given to prisoners' families. It seems politicians are starting to listen. Last month, Selous said he would meet prison governors to discuss what more they could do to improve family support, while in September, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan also signalled the issue would be a priority were Labour to form the next government.
Initiatives such as the Troubled Families programme are trying to work with repeat offenders to change their behaviour and keep them out of prison, but more support also needs to be given to the children of those already locked up.
With a growing prison population, the emphasis put on helping young adult prisoners is important for stemming the flow, but there also needs to be a proper strategy to support and educate the children of prisoners so they do not make the same mistakes as their parents.
Make LGBT young homeless a priority year-round
At this time of year, when the cold weather starts to bite and families traditionally come together over the festive period, homelessness takes on an added significance in the public consciousness.
But, of course, it is a year-round problem and one that for young people in particular is often caused by a breakdown in relationships with parents or carers in the family home.
The teenage years can be a turbulent time and it is a period often punctuated by coming into conflict with adults. This can be even more acute if a young person is coming to terms with being lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGBT), and their family is struggling to accept that.
With some experts estimating that as many as one in four homeless young people are LGBT, the need for specialist housing support is glaringly obvious. That is why it is so important that Purple Door, run by Albert Kennedy Trust, becomes the first of many projects dedicated to preventing homelessness among LGBT young people.
derren.hayes@markallengroup.com
