Which Way for Youth Custody?

 

Radical stuff from the Childrens Commissioner in her Longford Lecture this week- urging that Young Offender Institutions are closed now, that children aren’t remanded in custodial settings and that alternatives are developed even for those who commit the most serious offences.

Rachel de Souza is right that her message is politically inconvenient. But is it coherent in terms of policy?

I was surprised to read Rachel dismissing the Secure Schools initiative as a mere “tweak”. Despite current failings at Oasis Restore, replacing YOIs and the Secure Training Centre with more Secure Schools and Secure Childrens Homes has always looked a reasonable if ambitious long-term blueprint, despite its glacial progress so far. But it doesn’t satisfy Rachel’s desire for yet more fundamental change and the need to develop “genuine decent alternatives”.

The government response to the review on girls in custody also out this week illustrates the scale of the challenge of even modest reform to the system for this tiny group. Because as things stand a Secure Childrens Home can’t be required to accept every child referred to it, there’ll always be a need for a backstop form of custody to guarantee a court decision that a child should be detained can be implemented.

An enhanced protocol will see SCH’s working together to ensure more children deemed suitable for a placement can be accommodated in them. It’s a stretch to think that all of those currently held in YOI’s, mostly 16 and 17 years of age could easily be held safely in care-based facilities without significant investment not only in the number of places available but in staff capacity and regime development.

As for developing more wide-ranging alternatives to custody, it’s clear that the care sector is struggling to meet the needs of the children it’s already responsible for.  The  huge rise in the number of children deprived of their liberty by the High Court who can end up for months  in unregulated settings has in part been fuelled, according to the Nuffield Observatory, by the welcome falls in youth custody. Some children get locked up instead via the welfare system. The extent of what used to be called “transinstitutionalisation” needs further investigation.

Legal change and increased funding for open and secure residential care should bring down the numbers deprived of their liberty in this way over time. But the issue makes the case for a more integrated governmental approach to meeting the needs of all children in trouble. For example, by moving responsibility for youth justice to the Education Department. Or by broadening/reinventing the role of the Youth Justice Board. Without this, I can’t see Rachel’s radical vison taking root.

Also needed is proper consideration of the processes by which children end up behind bars. Neither the Gauke Sentencing Review nor Leveson’s Courts review looked at the effectiveness of arrangements for children. The interesting ideas for reforming the youth court in Charlie Taylor’s 2016 Youth Justice Review sit in some long grass somewhere in Whitehall. It’s time for a fresh look at these and other proposals for ensuring that decision-making about children in trouble across the board is appropriate to the task.  This is particularly true in respect of remand decision-making which is so often in Rachel’s memorable phrase “ a production line of pointlessness”

The Children’s Commissioner has opened up an important debate about how far and how fast we can go with youth justice reform. The disgraceful abuse faced by young men at Medomsley Detention Centre highlighted this week shows what can happen when punitive short sharp shock policies take hold in the justice system. Reform UK’s plan for “High Intensity Training Camps “has a worryingly familiar ring.

Labour has the opportunity, and many would say duty to chart an altogether more constructive course for youth justice.