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The Youth Justice System.
"This White Paper seeks to draw a line under the past and sets out a new approach to tackling youth crime. It begins the root and branch reform of the youth justice system that the Government promised the public" (The Home Secretary- J. Straw preface to the White Paper 1997)
If "everything has a history even history itself" then drawing a line under the past and the wholesale restructuring of an entire area of social policy may be more difficult than the present administration imagines.
The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act brings into being a comprehensive and all encompassing multi-agency approach to the prevention and management of offending behaviour by young people. The specific provisions of the Act, with an emphasis on early intervention, also set in place a number of new corrective, or even punitive measures, at least one of which is unprecedented anywhere in European Law - the Anti-social Behaviour Order, which blurs the distinction between civil and criminal law.
In addition this legislation arises in a media and politically constructed atmosphere that, since the early 1990s, is close to what Cohen and Young describe as a 'moral panic'. Indeed according to Charlotte Day of the Howard League for Penal Reform, magistrates already are using the new Detention and Training Order, one of the Orders created by the Act, with disturbing regularity "They are using it on cases where perhaps they wouldn't have used custody before." (Quoted in Community Care August 2000). Statistics to confirm this assertion are not at the moment available, though it is without doubt that the number of young people held in some kind of secure accommodation has increased over the last two years.
Let us be clear - not only do custodial sentences fail to prevent recidivism in those who endure its rigours but the conditions can be dire: Janet Dalrymple, managing director of secure facilities with the newly created Youth Justice Board, who visited Feltham on 1st August 2000 was so concerned at what she saw that, as soon as she got back to her office, she wrote to Kevin Brewer, head of the Young Offender Group at the Prison Service, asking for an urgent improvement in conditions on Kestrel Wing, an area which contains adult offenders as well as juveniles.
"I was appalled by the conditions on Kestrel, I think the place is squalid and depressing and not fit for the accommodation of young people. I cannot accept the conditions that I observed today and therefore wish to discuss with you, as a matter of urgency, how the services we are purchasing for remanded 17-year-olds at Feltham can be provided." (Quoted in Community Care August 2000)
It is also the case that the non-custodial alternatives available to magistrates are currently being under used. If the 1998 Act has the intention of simplifying the procedures, and speeding up the operations of the Youth Justice System, it also has to do so in the context of the Children and Young Persons Act of 1993, which specifically places an obligation on all courts to "have regard to the welfare of the child who appears before them." Many of the structures and provisions put in place by the Act appear to take little account of this constraint or of the protections afforded all individuals, child, youth or adult, by the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law.
In addition to the Crime and Disorder Act, more specific measures for the Youth Justice System itself were included in last years Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act which received Royal Assent on 27 July 1999. The Act and background information is held on the HMSO website.
Part 1 of the Act contains the process of reforming the Youth Justice System, begun by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, through the introduction of Referral Orders, for first time young offenders who plead guilty and do not require a custodial sentence.
The first contact the young person may have with the courts system will now normally result in an order for referral to a Youth Offender Panel, who will then decide on a Youth Offender Contract. Young people who commit more serious offences or who have a history of previous offences are unlikely, however to be offered this option, and those who breach Young Offender Contracts are now faced with a number of corrective or punitive sanctions.
Provision in the Crime & Disorder Act include a number of measures that are, however, more properly seen as Public Order measures. The specific provisions of the Act which are relevant to the operation of youth justice are numerous- the Act runs to 121 sections and many more related schedules. The full version of the introductory guide is available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/cdact/index.htm, but briefly the sections relevant to us are: Anti-social Behaviour Orders and Sex Offender Orders Sections 1-4, the policy initiative on Local Strategies for Reducing Crime and Disorder (Sections 5-7, 17), Parenting Orders, Child Safety Orders, Local Child Curfews and the provisions for the Removal of Truants (Sections 8-15).
The practical measures which also have a direct impact on young people are principally, Young Offenders - Reprimands and Warnings, (Sections 65 & 66) Action Plan Orders (Sections 67 & 68) Improvements to the Supervision Order (Sections 69 & 70) Detention and Training Orders (Sections 71 & 72) and the changes to Juvenile Secure Remands (Sections 97 & 98).
The provisions of the Act will be looked at in greater detail later in this module but looking specifically at one section may be illustrative of the real intention, and more importantly the political and social context of the legislation. Anti Social Behaviour Orders, which the Home Secretary has already urged the greater use of, appear to impose criminal sanctions on essentially civil offences. The ASB is, of course not specific to young people but its implications for family and Youth Justice are immense. Action to impose a ASB order is initiated by the Local Authority, where:
(a)that the person has acted, since the commencement date, in an anti-social manner, that is to say, in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as himself; and
(b) that such an order is necessary to protect persons in the local government area in which the harassment, alarm or distress was caused or was likely to be caused from further anti-social acts by him; and in this section "relevant authority" means the council for the local government area or any chief officer of police any part of whose police area lies within that area. (Crime and Disorder Act 1998)
You will note that there is no definition of anti social behaviour other that the subjective of "harassment, alarm or distress" and also no suggestion that a criminal act or acts have been committed.. and yet breaches of such order can result in unlimited fines or custodial sentences. The ASB order criminalises people, including young people, at the discretion of a local government official. It is however not just vague and badly framed, but also a massive State intrusion into social life. It's purpose is clearly one of social control - but social control with a draconian punitive element.
Brian Mulrine © 2000