General election 2019: Youth justice

LABOUR

• Shake-up the youth justice system with plans to innovate and incentivise councils, police and youth services to engage with young people at risk of crime and antisocial behaviour
• Review youth custody and youth court system
• Tackle disproportionate numbers of black, Asian and minority ethnic young people in custody

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

• Spend £500m a year on adopting a public health approach to tackling youth violence
• Take a preventative approach to youth violence – training police, teachers, health professionals, youth workers and social services to identify early signs of young people becoming involved in gangs and violence
• Stabilise and then reduce levels of knife crime

CONSERVATIVES

• Expansion of stop-and-search powers, making it easier for police to target known knife carriers
• Knife carriers will be arrested, charged within 24 hours and in court within a week
• Violence reduction units – multi-agency teams made up of the police, social services and other agencies – will be boosted by £35m next year to champion preventative work
• Adults who murder children will be imprisoned for life without parole through a revision of the Criminal Justice Act 2003
• Create a Prison Education Service to oversee education and training in the secure estate to track offenders’ progress throughout their time in prison
• Increase by 25 per cent the victims surcharge – a fine on offenders that goes towards refuges and community support for victims of abuse

COMMENTARY

Labour’s manifesto contains a general ambition to take a more prevention focus to youth offending, while the Lib Dems want to expand the previous government’s initiatives to develop a public health approach to tackling violent crime.

Hot on the heels of the previous government’s policy to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers, the Conservatives have pledged the most in tackling offending.

Alongside continuing to invest in violence reduction units, it has made a series of controversial pledges to expand stop and search and fast-track through the courts those found to be carrying knives illegally.

If elected, it is likely the Conservatives will push ahead with plans to develop secure schools as alternatives to secure training centres and young offender institutions.

The Together for Children coalition of 70 leading children’s organisations – including the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, Just for Kids Law, Inquest and Article 39 – have called for the next government to go further than this and close all child prisons urgently.

The coalition of organisations calls for politicians to “ensure children’s contact with the criminal justice system is a last resort”, and where this is necessary for their own safety and for the public’s protection, this should be in council-run secure children’s homes.

It also calls for a raising of the minimum age of criminal responsibility “to protect children from damaging contact with the criminal justice system”, and for all parties to fully sign up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which marked it’s 30th anniversary in November.

Coalition member Carolyne Willow, director of children’s rights charity Article 39, says: “We want to see children and their rights at the heart of manifestos – not the odd mention here and there, but a systematic strategy for making our country among the best in the world for children’s rights. Five years can make or break a childhood, so the weeks ahead really matter.”

• Read more from CYP Now's general election policy guide