Tougher community sentences planned for young offenders
Fiona Simpson
Friday, March 12, 2021
Children convicted of crimes are set to receive tougher community sentences as an alternative to custody under new legislation planned for England and Wales.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which was introduced in parliament earlier this week, includes “stronger" youth community sentencing options, including greater use of location monitoring and longer daily curfews, providing "robust" alternatives to custody, according to the Home Office.
Planned changes to legislation, which will be read for the second time in the House of Commons next week, include doubling the length of curfew orders from one year to two for young offenders and increasing the daily maximum period under curfew from 16 to 20 hours within the current 112 hours per week limit.
The legislation will also make a number of changes to the youth rehabilitation order (YRO) - a youth community sentence that allows courts to choose from a selection of 18 requirements, including curfews, education, activity, unpaid work, and health.
Changes include piloting location monitoring (tagging) as part of the list of requirements available to courts included in such orders.
Plans also suggest raising the upper age limit of the education requirement so that children who are past compulsory school age, but in compulsory education or training, will still be eligible for education requirements and increasing the use of tags.
The responsibility of monitoring young people with tags will be handed to "responsible officers" within youth offending teams rather than location monitoring companies.
The bill would also increase the length of intensive supervision and surveillance (ISS) orders from six to 12 months in a bid to increase their use as a replacement for short custodial sentences, documents published by the Home Office state.
The bill also includes changes to youth custodial sentences “ensuring that the courts have the tools they need to pass appropriate sentences that properly reflect the culpability of a child and the seriousness of their offending, and that work fairly”.
These include replacing current fixed lengths for detention and training orders (DTOs) with the option for courts to sentence young offenders to any length of time between four and 24 months.
“This allows the courts to pass the right sentence in the interests of the child and the interests of justice.
“It also means that more accurate reductions can be made for time spent on remand, qualifying bail and guilty pleas,” the Home Office states.
The automatic release point for serious offenders serving sentences of seven years or more is set to increase to two-thirds while changes to the calculation of discretionary life sentences and mandatory life sentences for murder are also planned.
The bill also aims to “ensure custodial remand is a last resort for children when courts refuse bail” by strengthening tests to determine whether or not a child should be kept on remand.
Meanwhile, plans are also made around the introduction of secure schools, the first of which is due to open in Medway, Kent, next year.
The bill will introduce a measure to ensure that operating as a secure school can be a charitable activity following a row over the contract to run the first facility being handed to the Oasis Charitable Trust.
“Secure schools are a planned new form of youth custody which will align the youth custodial estate with international evidence that smaller, more therapeutic units are more successful in rehabilitating offenders and reducing reoffending,” the Home Office states.
“We are setting secure schools up as educational institutions. They will be dual-established as secure 16-19 academies and secure children’s homes,” it adds.
A measure is also set to be introduced to “establish a clear statutory basis for the use of temporary release in secure children’s homes (SCHs) in England and Wales”.
Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland QC said of the bill: “We are giving the police and courts the powers they need to keep our streets safe, while providing greater opportunities for offenders to turn their lives around and better contribute to society.
“At the same time, we are investing hundreds of millions to deliver speedier justice and boost support for victims, and will continue to do everything it takes to build back confidence in the criminal justice system.”
