Drive to stop locking up young offenders who breach sentences

The government’s Breaking the Cycle green paper called for youth offending teams (YOTs) to establish compliance panels to help reduce the number of young people sent to custody for breaching community orders.

In 2010/11, 1,220 young people received a custodial sentence for breaching an order, with a further 193 sentenced to custody for breaching bail.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) is now spearheading a drive to introduce the panels across England and Wales.

A new YJB framework highlights a range of different models used by local areas.
Lucy Dawes, director of performance at the YJB, says: “There are a variety of models out there. YOTs like the idea of compliance panels, but they want them to be flexible enough to fit with local approaches. We want to stress the importance of effective oversight and management of processes, particularly in identifying the cohort.

“The process and casework required to identify those who could breach is complex. We want to take practice from YOTs at the forefront of this and share it.”

In Bradford, YOT manager Paul O’Hara’s team became aware of a large proportion of young people ending up in custody as a result of breach, after analysing local data as part of the West Yorkshire pilot on devolving the cost of custody.

It emerged that young people breaching orders made up 27 per cent of those sentenced to custody in the area, a higher proportion than those sentenced for offences such as robbery or violence. Since the compliance panel was introduced, that figure has now dropped to 11 per cent.

“At the point where we would previously have returned the young person straight to court, we now put together a compliance panel,” he says.

“Sometimes the panel meets in the YOT office, sometimes in the young person’s home. What is interesting is the number of different issues that come to
the fore.

Involving the family

“In some cases, the parent isn’t fully aware that the young person hasn’t been complying and it can be a shock to them. In other instances, there are practical reasons why they haven’t been able to attend and you are able to talk that through with them and agree ways it can be addressed.

“It is about getting families on board. It is much more positive than going to court and we can pick issues up much quicker.”

Issues can range from not having a bus fare, feeling threatened by other young people at YOT premises, through to not really understanding the requirements of the order.

If these can be addressed swiftly, O’Hara says, the likelihood of breach can be significantly reduced.

In Coventry, the YOT has begun using a tool called Wizard to track failures to comply with community orders on the youth offending information system. It is also working with schools in the area to provide additional support to young offenders at risk of breach, for example by asking the institution to put on extra tutoring, which can then be monitored by the YOT.

“Most of the young offenders we deal with are in and out of school, so it is a question of what can be done differently to work with this group,” says Georgina Kell, service manager in Coventry.

“With local authorities picking up the remand bill, they are going to want to start putting more resources into working with this group.”