Labour Party Conference: Call to extend remit of YJB to under-21s

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said the move – which would see the remit of youth offending teams (YOTs) extended in parallel – could help reduce the numbers of 18- to 20-year-olds coming into contact with the justice system and being imprisoned, replicating improvements seen with under-18s.

"I think the time is right to extend the age the YJB is responsible for," said Khan, who was speaking at a fringe meeting on the future of the youth justice system at Labour's annual conference in Manchester.

"We are doing some costings to see how it can be done."

Khan initially announced that Labour would consider extending the remit of the YJB and YOTs after the idea featured in an IPPR report in June.

Speaking at the meeting, he pledged that funding would be made available to help youth offending teams deal with the additional work they would face.

"We are not going to do the trick of cost-shunting by giving responsibility and not funding," he said.

The idea of extending the YJB's remit to cover 18- to 24-year-olds was previously considered by the coalition government as part of a triennial review of the establishment, but was ruled out due to it being too costly.

But those supporting the idea point to significant progress in key youth justice indicators in recent years as reason for pursuing it.

In 2012/13, there were 27,854 first-time entrants to the system compared with 110,748 in 2006/07. Meanwhile, in July this year there were 1,122 under-18s in custody, compared with 3,006 in July 2008.          

Khan also stressed that a Labour government would invest in prevention work in order to further reduce the number of young people coming into contact with the criminal justice system.

"We need more thought on preventing young people committing first offences because our ability to rehabilitate is not great," he said.

"That means investing in Sure Start [children's centres], family intervention, youth centres, smaller classrooms and education maintenance allowance to get young people into further education."

Former chair of the Youth Justice Board, Frances Done, told the meeting she is in favour of extending the kind of work done with under-18s to 18- to 21-year-olds.

"Anyone who knows anything about youth justice knows it has delivered a lot more than the adult system," she said.

However, Done stressed that there should be some flexibility in how change is achieved.

"I don't think the government should tell local authorities that they must extend the remit of YOTs. They should be asked to do it in a way that suits them. There could be an arrangement for teams for 18- to 20-year-olds in some areas.

"National leadership should come from the YJB which can broker on behalf of localities and support them.”

Gareth Jones, chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, told CYP Now that his organisation has long been concerned about the "precipice" faced by young people leaving the youth secure estate and moving to adult establishments.

"You can't do an assessment on a child one week and think that their needs suddenly change if they turn 18 and become and adult the same week. They haven't.”

He added that the main concern would be making sure there is a transfer of adequate resources to cover the additional costs YOTs would face.