There’s a lot to be said for the report of Charlie Taylor’s youth justice review, which has finally been published along with the government’s response; and one question. What will actually be done with it?
We learned yesterday that two secure schools will be created but when,
where and in place of what remain to be seen. Ironically they are probably the
least promising of the review’s recommendations. Despite mountains of evidence
about the ineffectiveness of custodial institutions, Taylor has felt obliged to
invent yet another species. Approved schools, Detention Centres,
Borstals, Youth Treatment Centres, Young Offender Institutions, and Secure
Training Centres have all proved more or less expensive failures. The
Coalition’s plan for a Secure College was quickly killed off by Michael Gove
before he announced the review. Do we need another variant?
From what little detail is available, Taylor’s schools seem most likely
to resemble what are now known as Secure Children’s Homes (SCH’s) –small
therapeutic establishments , mostly local government run, necessarily
expensive and whose numbers have declined substantially in recent years. The
secure schools will be bigger than SCH’s with 60-70 places – probably a
mistake- but more promisingly Taylor wants to see more temporary release and
lower security levels. Reversing the decline in the number of SCH’s
combined with serious reforms to reduce further the need for under 18’s to be
locked up at all looks a better strategy than devising yet another generation
of closed institutions .
To his credit, Taylor does go some way down the demand reduction road,
recommending an end to short custodial sentences, fewer remands in custody and
young people- children first, offenders second for him– as far as possible kept
away from the “tainting” effects of the formal justice system. The
review proposes that children under 16 should only have their liberty
restricted exceptionally if they pose a serious risk to the public. On these
recommendations the Government response is distinctly cool.
It’s lukewarm on Taylor’s proposed devolution of the costs of
custody to local authorities, together with the power to commission the kind of
services that children in trouble require. While recognising the need for
greater input from health and education, Taylor thinks the mandatory model of
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) may be past its sell by date, inhibiting
potentially more effective partnership arrangements. A logical consequence of
devolution, that’s still a risky call in a climate of cost cutting. The
government seem to recognise that an absence of a statutory duty to run a YOT,
and the removal of ring fenced funding may produce not local innovation but the
kind of neglect that required the dirigiste reforms of the 1990’s. The
result of this part of the review is…another review.
The driver of those 1990's reforms, the Youth Justice Board, looks to have
survived. Taylor thought it could be replaced by a Youth Justice
Commissioner in the heart of rather at arms- length from the MoJ, with a
potential move to the education department. Instead, when it plays a part of the new review
of governance, the YJB is unlikely to cast itself as a Christmas voting turkey.
Taylor’s most radical idea is to have decisions about dealing with
children in trouble made not by magistrates in a youth court –though they would
continue to decide on matters of guilt and innocence- but by new panels akin to
those operating in the Scottish Children’s Hearings system. These would not be
mini courts- though some current JP’s could become members alongside others
with experience of young people, in particular their education. Panels would
draw up, publish and review plans for each child setting out not only their
obligations not also those of the agencies responsible for their care and
supervision. The most serious cases would continue to go to
the Crown court but with plans drawn up by the panels.
It’s a bold proposal but moving from a “justice system with some welfare
to a welfare system with justice” has proved many steps too far for the MoJ.
What would be the biggest change to youth justice since 1969 is going nowhere.
There are plenty of worthwhile recommendations which the Government can take
forward - better training for appropriate adults, improved legal
advice, less criminalisation of children in care , streamlined
assessment and a limit on criminal records. More staff in YOI’s will be useful
too, confirming Liz Truss as less of an architect and more of a plumber.
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