04 October 2007
David Hanson welcomes new joint arrangements between the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Children, Schools and Families to deliver on young offenders.
New joint responsibility between the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Ministry of Justice for youth justice policy provides a real opportunity for services which help young offenders and those at risk of offending, to be more joined up, said Justice Minister David Hanson MP.
In his keynote speech at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Youth Justice conference in Bath today (4 October), David Hanson will set out his vision of an end-to-end youth justice system that reduces the impact of offending on local communities and on young people. He will welcome the new joint role of the DCSF in youth justice, particularly the contribution that this will make to prevention and early intervention with children at risk of offending, which is the cornerstone of the Government's approach to reducing youth crime. He will emphasise the critical role of parents in preventing crime as well as setting out new arrangements for young people who end up in court for serious or repeat offences.
In future they will be subject to personalised community sentences tailored to each young person's needs and to the seriousness of the offence, said Justice Minister David Hanson.
Conference delegates, drawn from the police service, the courts, and from statutory and voluntary sector agencies that work with children and young people, will hear from the Minister about the Government's plans to introduce:-
- Youth Rehabilitation Orders, which will be the standard community sentence for the majority of young offenders. Courts handing down the sentences can devise a tailored rehabilitation programme for young offenders, choosing from a menu of options such as drug treatment and testing, mental health treatment, supervision and curfew.
- The proposed Youth Rehabilitation Order will also include an Intensive Supervision and Surveillance element, which will be the most robust community sentence, reserved for those serious or persistent young offenders who might otherwise be at risk of a custodial sentence. Intensive Supervision and Surveillance will help to ensure that a young person would be sent to custody only after very careful consideration.
- Youth Conditional Cautions, to deal with young people involved in low-level offending. YCCs, devised in response to advice from youth justice experts, reduce the number of young people taken to court. Instead, YCCs forces 16-17 year olds to address their misbehaviour and gives them a chance to make amends to the victims of their crimes.
- Increase the extent to which parents are held accountable. For instance, juveniles (aged 10 to 17) who are convicted can be ordered by the court to pay compensation for damage that they have caused or their parents can be ordered to pay on their behalf. Parents may also be required to pay where there is a Penalty Notice for Disorder.
The plans form part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, currently under consideration in Parliament.
Justice Minister David Hanson said,
"I will be setting out the Government's plans for tackling youth crime. But the main reason I am at this conference is to hear from the judges, police officers, youth workers and probation officers - they work at the front line and they realise that in order to turn young people away from a life of crime, we have to intervene at that crucial period when they are no longer children but not yet adults.
The Government's proposals are centred on prevention and early intervention. If we identify and intervene early we can reduce the number of children ending up in the criminal justice system."
Notes to Editors
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