Abstract
All Prison Service Custodial Units for Girls in England and Wales to be Decommissioned
Children subject to custodial remand or sentence in England and Wales are detained in one of three institutions that, taken together, comprise the secure estate for children and young people: prison service young offender institutions (YOIs); privately managed secure training centres (STCs); and local authority managed secure children’s homes (SCHs). Girls represent a relatively small proportion of the imprisoned population and, in 2005, the Youth Justice Board implemented a long-held aspiration to remove all females below the age of 17 years from YOIs to the two other forms of provision. In the same year, five discrete YOI units for 17 year-old girls were opened, although two of these have closed in the intervening period.
Youth custody has declined significantly in recent years. In June 2013, there were 1237 children below the age of 18 years detained in the secure estate compared with 3072 in June 2008, representing a decline of almost 60 per cent. In consequence, elements of youth custodial provision have been decommissioned. In a statement given in response to a Parliamentary question on 18 July 2013, Jeremy Wright, Parliamentary Under-Secretary with responsibility for youth justice, confirmed that since April 2000, the Youth Justice Board has withdrawn commissioning from 13 YOIs, a reduction of 1850 places. Over the same period, the Board has ceased contracting with 15 SCHs, leading to 150 fewer placements for younger and more vulnerable children.
The fall in the number of girls deprived of their liberty has been sharper than that for their male counterparts. Between June 2008 and June 2013, the population of incarcerated girls fell by more than 77 per cent: in the latter month, just 51 girls were in custody. At the same time, legislative changes, implemented on 3 December 2012, permitted placement of 17 year-olds subject to custodial remand (who had previously been treated as adults for remand purposes), outside of YOIs.
In July 2013, the Youth Justice Board announced that it would withdraw fully from the remaining three YOIs accommodating girls below the age of 18 years. As indicated in Table 1, the units had a combined capacity to provide 41 custodial places, but in April 2013 held just eight girls between them. As a consequence, all girls in custody will, in future, be detained in SCHs or STCs.
Young offender institutions for 17 year-old girls to be decommissioned and capacity at the point of withdrawal.
The proposal was welcomed by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, a coalition of voluntary sector agencies with an interest in youth justice. Penelope Gibbs, chair of the Committee, noted that YOIs were not suitable for girls and that: Where custodial sentences are used we believe that secure children’s homes and secure training centres are more appropriate due to the training of staff and the smaller size of the establishments.
Jeremy Wright’s Parliamentary answer appears at Hansard, House of Commons, Column 856W, 18 July 2013.
Figures on the population of the secure estate for children and young people are given in Monthly Data and Analysis Custody Report − June 2013, published by the Ministry of Justice and available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/youth-custody-data.
Details of decommissioning of girls’ YOIs are given in YJ Bulletin – Secure Estate 83(4), July 2013, published by the Youth Justice Board.
Penelope Gibb’s comments appear in ‘Campaigners back closure of all-girl YOIs’, by Joe Lepper, in Children and Young People Now, 4 July 2013.
Relative Cost of Custodial Placement in Secure Children’s Homes in England and Wales Falls
The cost of locking up children in custody in England and Wales varies considerably according to the nature of the establishment. In 2013/14, for instance, the average sector, per capita, annual placement cost was £60,000 for a young offender institution (YOI), £187,000 for a secure training centre (STC) and £209,000 for a secure children’s home. Such differences are explained largely in terms of establishment size and staff to child ratios. Financial considerations are apparent in the pattern of custodial placements, with the large majority of children detained in (cheaper) YOIs (more than 70% at June 2013), while placements in SCHs account for a much smaller proportion of the custodial population (10% at June 2013) and are reserved for younger, and particularly vulnerable, children.
The relative cost of SCHs has, however, fallen in recent years. On 27 June 2013, in answer to a Parliamentary question, Jeremy Wright, Minister with responsibility for youth justice, confirmed that whereas YOI ‘bed prices’ had remained broadly stable since 2009/10, they had risen in privately managed STCs by almost 17 per cent, and declined in SCHs by approaching three per cent. As shown in Table 2, over the same period, the distribution of the custodial population has also shifted. The proportion of children placed in SCHs has risen slightly, corresponding broadly to the reduction in cost, but the most significant change is a sharp increase in the use of STCs in spite of the considerable rise in the cost of such provision.
Average annual per capita placement cost per annum (to nearest £000) by sector and proportion of the custodial population detained in each sector.
The Minister’s answer is given at Hansard, House of Commons, 27 June 2013, Column 368W.
Figures for the breakdown of youth custodial population by sector types are derived from Monthly data and analysis custody report - June 2013, published by the Ministry of Justice and available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/youth-custody-data.
Government in England and Wales Challenged for Failing to Implement Independent Complaints Procedures in Secure Training Centres
On 21 August 2013, the Howard League for Penal Reform published an open letter to Chris Grayling, Justice Secretary, arguing that the current arrangements for dealing with children’s grievances in secure training centres (STCs) do not provide for ‘an effective and independent complaints procedure’, and indicating their intention to initiate proceedings for judicial review unless the government introduces such a mechanism.
During 2011/12, there was an average of 111 incidents of physical restraint per month within STCs, affecting 18 per cent of the population imprisoned within such establishments. Yet many children within the secure estate choose not to make complaints − even when they have been maltreated − because they lack confidence in the complaints system.
While the STC rules require that each establishment has a grievance procedure which includes the right of appeal to a ‘monitor’, such staff are employed by the Youth Justice Board and are frequently based within the institution. The Howard League’s letter contrasts this situation with the independent complaint procedures available to children detained in YOIs (and adult prisoners), who may complain to the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, even though they are considered to be less vulnerable than those held in STCs. The Youth Justice Board has itself acknowledged the lack of consistency between YOIs and STCs and has proposed that consideration be given to extend the remit of the Prison and Probation Ombudsman to include the latter form of establishment.
The Howard League contends that the current arrangements constitute a breach of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment and has been held to impose an obligation on states to provide for ‘effective official investigation’ where such treatment may be alleged. The Howard League argues further that the differential procedures across the secure estate breaches article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits discrimination where other articles are engaged.
The Howard League’s open letter to the Justice Secretary – RE inadequacy of complaints system for children in secure training centres: Letter before action – is available at: http://www.howardleague.org/legal-fight/.
A New National Framework for Children’s Hearings in Scotland
The Scottish children’s hearings system is at the heart of arrangements for determining the treatment of children in conflict with the law below the age of 16 years. Any child below that age who is alleged to have committed an offence, as well and any other child or young person who is considered to be in need or care and protection, is referred to the Children’s Reporter. Where he or she determines that compulsory supervision may be required, a children’s hearing is convened. Decisions at the hearing are made by three children’s panel members, volunteers from the local community who function as a lay tribunal that determines what should happen to the child, whether compulsory measures are required and, if so, what those measures should be.
During 2011/12, 31,593 cases were referred to the Reporter, a reduction of more than 20 per cent over the previous year. Of these, 5604 children (almost 18%) were referred on offence grounds with the remainder reflecting other concerns about their well-being. As shown in Table 3, 13 per cent of offence-based cases, where there was a reporter decision, resulted in children’s hearings.
Children reporter decisions during 2011/12 in relation to children referred on offence grounds.
The Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 amends the provisions governing children’s hearing and was implemented on 24 June 2013. The main focus of the legislation is a centralizing one: it establishes a national convenor for children’s hearings; it creates Children’s Hearings Scotland as a non-departmental public body whose role is to support the national convenor as regards recruitment, selection, training, retention and support of panel members; and it introduces a national children’s panel to replace the 32 local authority children’s panels that existed previously. This national focus, notwithstanding, there is a duty on the Reporter to ensure that hearings take place in the local authority where the child resides and a corresponding obligation on the national convenor to ensure that, so far as practicable, hearings consist only of members of the children’s panel who live or work in the child’s local authority area.
The legislation also modifies the grounds of referral to children’s hearings, simplifies the powers of the hearing to impose compulsory supervision, and allows for pre-panels hearings with the power to make certain procedural decisions in advance of the full meeting of the panel. Section 25 of the Act reaffirms the centrality of the welfare principle to the Scottish system. In any case where a children’s hearing, pre-hearing panel or court is coming to a decision about a matter regarding a child, it ‘is to regard the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child throughout the child's childhood as the paramount consideration’. This is reflected in the first of eight new national standards governing the work of the children’s hearing system which requires that ‘Children and young people are at the centre of everything we do’.
Figures on referrals to the Children’s Reporter are given in Scottish Children Reporter’s Administration Annual Report 2011/12, available at: www.scra.gov.uk/sites/scra/cms_resources/Annual%20Report%20201112.html
The Children Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 is available at: www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2011/1/contents
Information about the new national framework is available on the website of Children’s Hearings Scotland at: www.chscotland.gov.uk/.
Number of Youth Court ‘Completed Cases’ in Canada Reaches a 20-year Low
During 2011/12, Canadian youth courts completed a total 48,299 cases involving 166,125 charges, a decline of almost ten per cent over the previous year. A fall was recorded by all provinces or territories, but there were considerable geographic differences. The trend was most pronounced in Yukon and the North West Territories, both of which registered a reduction of more than one third (although the absolute numbers are comparatively small). By contrast, in Quebec, the number of cases completed was just 1.5 per cent below that in the previous year. The overall decline applied to both property and violent offences but was considerably greater in relation to the former (15.5% compared with 8.3%).
The recent pattern is consistent with that over the longer term: there has been a rise in completed youth court cases in just five out of the last 20 years. Between 1991/92 − when data were first collected by Statistics Canada − and 2011/12, the number of youth court case reduced by almost half. The number of charges against children considered by the youth court in the latter year was also the lowest since recording in the current format began.
Of cases completed during 2011/12, 57 per cent resulted in a finding of guilt, with other cases being dismissed, discharged, withdrawn or stayed. The distribution of outcomes has changed in recent years: the proportion of cases resulting in conviction has fallen to its current level from a high point of almost 70 per cent in the late-1900s. In the event of a conviction, probation is the most common form of disposal, accounting for 58 per cent of sentences imposed during 2011/12. Community service was imposed in one quarter of cases.
Fifteen per cent of youth court convictions resulted in a custodial disposal. This compares with an imprisonment rate of between 24 and 29 per cent throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Much of the decline in custody has occurred since the implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2003, which introduced deferred custody and supervision as an alternative to immediate deprivation of liberty. The recent reduction in the latter is partially offset by an increased use of the former which now accounts for around one in 20 of all sentences imposed.
Youth court statistics in Canada 2011/12, by Mia Dauvergne, is published by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and is available at: www.statcan.gc.ca/access_acces/alternative_alternatif.action?l=eng&teng=Youth%20court%20statistics%20in%20Canada,%202011/2012&tfra=Statistiques%20sur%20les%20tribunaux%20de%20la%20jeunesse%20au%20Canada,%202011-2012&loc=/pub/85-002-x/2013001/article/11803-eng.pdf.
More than Nine in Ten Children in US Detention Centre have ‘Experienced at Least One Trauma’
On 24 February 2010, ‘juvenile offenders’ were detained in US residential facilities, equivalent to 225 for every 100,000 of juveniles in the general population. The number of children incarcerated for offending has fallen by more than one third since 1991, but the profile of those detained has remained similar. In particular, males continue to make up the large majority (87%) of the custodial population and children from minority ethnic groups are substantially overrepresented. In 2010, the rate of black placement in a residential facility was 606 juveniles for every 100,000 in the general population; the equivalent figures for Hispanic and white youth were 228 and 128 respectively. There is clear evidence too that the remaining population might be considered vulnerable on a range of indicators.
A study of 898 children aged 10–18 years detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Centre, which provides custodial facilities for Chicago and the surrounding neighbourhood, established that 92.5 per cent had experienced at least one of eight types of traumatic life event. Eighty-four per cent of the sample had experienced more than one trauma and more than half (56.8%) had been exposed to traumatic experiences six or more times.
As indicated in Table 4, witnessing serious violence (defined as ‘having seen or heard someone get badly hurt or be killed’) was the most prevalent form of trauma, followed by being threatened with a weapon, or being in a situation where there was a perceived risk of serious harm or death to the subject or someone close to them. Overall boys were significantly more likely than girls, and older children more likely than younger children, to report a traumatic experience. There were no significant differences across racial /ethnic groups but, at the level of individual trauma, some differences did emerge. Among males, non-Hispanic whites were more likely to have been physically attacked or badly beaten than African Americans; among females, Hispanics were significantly more likely to have been a victim of attack or beating than black girls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, while boys had generally suffered higher levels of trauma, girls were more likely to report having been forced to engage in a sexual activity against their will.
Prevalence of different forms of trauma.
The sample was also assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) and 11.2 per cent were found to have experienced the condition in the year prior to interview. Among males, the most common precipitating trauma was having witnessed violence; for girls it was thinking that they or someone close to them was going to be hurt very badly or die. Sixty-four per cent of children not suffering from PTSD were diagnosed as having at least one type of psychiatric disorder; for those with PTSD the figure rose to 93 per cent.
While the authors acknowledge that comparison is difficult, it is clear that exposure to trauma identified in the study was considerably greater than that found among the youth population in the community. Moreover, the prevalence of PTSD, affecting more than one in ten of the sample (during the 12 months prior to the interview), exceeded by some margin lifetime estimates reported in community samples, which range from 3.5 per cent to 9.2 per cent. The authors conclude that: This nation’s delinquent children are among its most traumatized. The resources used to punish them must be balanced with the resources needed to treat them.
Findings from the ‘Survey of youth in residential placements’ might be thought to suggest that experiences within the custodial setting have the potential to exacerbate vulnerabilities such as those described above. Almost half of a nationally representative sample of 7973 children in custody had had personal property stolen within the institution, 29 per cent had been assaulted, 10 per cent were victims of robbery and four per cent had been forced to engage in sexual activity against their will. Sixty-one per cent of victims of violence (robbery, assault or sexual assault) reported that they had been injured during the incident and almost half required medical treatment.
Those most at risk of violent victimization were: younger children; those with experience of abuse prior to incarceration; children with a learning disability; and those subject to longer custodial episodes.
Figures for the number of children in residential facilities are derived from:
Juveniles in Residential Placement, 2010, by Sarah Hockenberry, which is available at: www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/241060.pdf.
PTSD, Trauma and Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders in Detained Youth by Karen M. Abram, Linda A. Teplin, Devon C. King, Sandra L. Longworth, Kristin M. Emanuel, Erin G. Romero, Gary M. McClelland, Mina K. Dulcan, Jason J. Washburn, Leah J. Welty, and Nichole D. Olson, is available at: www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/239603.pdf.
Nature and Risk of Victimisation by Andrea J. Sedlak, Karla S. McPherson, and Monica Basena, is available at: www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/240703.pdf.
All three reports are published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Knife Possession by Children in England and Wales Falls
According to a report published by the Ministry of Justice, the number of children receiving a formal youth justice disposal for possession of a knife or offensive weapon was 26 per cent lower, in the first quarter of 2013, than in the equivalent period in 2010. The proportion who received an immediate custodial sentence remained stable at nine per cent. Of the 2506 children processed for such offences in the year ending March 2013, the large majority (89%) had no previous convictions or pre-court disposals for knife possession. For children who did have a previous similar offence, the rate of custodial sentencing rose to one in four.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced new offences of aggravated knife possession that apply in the case of intentional use of an offensive weapon or bladed article to create an immediate risk of serious physical harm in a public place or on school premises. The offences came into force on 3 December 2012 and for children aged 16−17 years attract a minimum custodial penalty of four months unless that would be unjust. During the first quarter of 2013, just seven children were given a substantive disposal for such offences: two received a pre-court disposal; two a community sentence; and two were imprisoned. The final case was awaiting sentencing. The ages of the children in each category are not given.
Knife Possession Sentencing Quarterly Brief: January to March 2013 − England and Wales, published by the Ministry of Justice, is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/knife-possession-sentencing-quarterly-brief-january-to-march-2013.
Review Determines that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales should Retain Current Functions
The Youth Justice Board (YJB) is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with a statutory remit to:
monitor the operation of the youth justice system;
advise the Secretary of State on issues pertaining to youth crime and the development of national standards;
promote good practice; and
commission youth custodial provision.
The Board was a key constituent of New Labour’s youth justice reforms but its future became uncertain with the election of the Conservative / Liberal Democrat Coalition government in May 2010, politically committed to decentralization and a reduction in bureaucracy. The Public Bodies Bill introduced in 2011 would have abolished the YJB along with a range of other NDPBs but, following opposition to the proposal, the Board was removed from the list of affected organizations. However, the government confirmed, at the time, its view that there was a strong case for reform of the Board’s powers.
The Coalition government subsequently adopted a policy that all surviving NDPBs would be subject to review every three years to determine whether their continued existence was warranted. In January 2013, it was announced that the YJB would be subject to such a Triennial Review process. The first stage of that review, dealing with the functions of the Board, was published in July 2013. Jeremy Wright, Parliamentary Under-Secretary with responsibility for youth justice, explained that the government had taken the unusual step of making public the findings prior to completion of the second stage of the review: … as it is important that there is clarity about the future of the Youth Justice Board ahead of recruiting a new chair of the YJB to replace the current chair when she finishes her second term of office in January 2014 and to ensure that the recommendations can be considered as part of my ongoing reform of the youth secure estate.
The review determines that, given the government’s commitment to maintaining a distinct youth justice system, the functions currently carried out by the Board, are still required. Moreover, in combination these functions require a ‘critical mass’ of expertise that implies their concentration within a single agency. In principle, responsibility for the requisite activities could be brought within the Ministry of Justice or transferred to an executive agency, but the review acknowledges the support from stakeholders to maintain the YJB in its current form. The accountability arrangements to which the Board is subject are, moreover, comparable to those of an executive agency and many of the YJB’s powers are exercised concurrently with the Minister of State. Bearing in mind, the government’s recent decision to remove the Board from the Public Bodies Bill, the review recommends that there is merit in retaining the existing model of delivery.
This is not to suggest that the status quo will be maintained. The role of the YJB, although formally unchanged, has shifted over time and the review’s recommendations will reinforce some trends while altering the direction of travel in other respects.
To take an example of the latter, performance management of local youth justice services has, for much of its existence, been a central focus of the YJB’s activity, but this function has been pared back significantly in the face of the present administration’s localism agenda. The review notes that this decrease in the oversight of youth offending teams (YOT), manifested in a reduction (in England but not in Wales) from 12 reporting measures to three, raises questions as to how effectively the Board can fulfil its statutory responsibility to monitor the provision of youth justice services. In particular, as ring-fencing of grants made by the YJB for developing good practice has been removed, it has become increasingly difficult for the Board to ensure that such funds (which account for around one-third of YOTs’ budgets) are used to meet the intended purpose rather than supplementing resources for routine operational activities. In this context, and contrary to the general thrust of government policy, the review recommends revision of the conditions under which grants are awarded, linking it to the delivery of specific outcomes and requiring recipients to report how the money will be used and ‘against which measurable outcomes’. The developing autonomy of YOTs to operate in disparate ways may accordingly be tempered, but it seems unlikely that this will be sufficient to restore the YJB’s influence over local practice to the level that pertained under New Labour.
Conversely, other recent developments are likely to be confirmed rather than checked. In the recent period, the YJB has become increasingly aligned to the Ministry of Justice, symbolized by the former’s move to the latter’s premises in 2012. Indeed, the review acknowledges that it is precisely this relative lack of independence that allows it to conclude that the current arrangements can remain in place. It seems clear that the intention is to make the Board increasingly accountable to ministers. The review concurs with views expressed in recent reports by the National Audit Office and the Justice Select Committee that the evidence-base in regard to effective practice remains relatively thin. The Board’s spending on research has moreover declined: in 2011/12 just 0.05 per cent of the YJB’s total expenditure was allocated to research activity. While not proposing an increase in funding for this area of the Board’s activity, the review does recommend that ‘all proposed research projects be routinely subject to Ministerial approval’.
It seems likely that this process of curtailing the Board’s independence from government is likely to continue. The second stage of the review is to consider governance and accountability arrangements and Jeremy Wright has clarified that this exercise will have ‘a particular focus on increasing ministerial accountability and a closer degree of control of financial management’.
The Triennial Review of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales: Stage 1 is published by the Ministry of Justice and is available at: https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/yjb-triennial-review-2012.
Jeremy Wright’s comments are given in Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (Triennial Review), a written ministerial statement in Hansard, Column 89WS, 16 July 2013.
Girls in Gangs in England and Wales Five Times as Likely to have Imprisoned Parents as Other Children in the Youth Justice System
A report by the Centre for Mental Health, drawing on data from 8029 children screened at the point of arrest, suggests that girls entering the youth justice system are more vulnerable than their male counterparts. Moreover, as shown in Table 5, the study found that while girls’ involvement in gangs remains relatively rare, where girls did associate with gangs, they were significantly more vulnerable than both general female entrants to the youth justice system overall and boys in gangs. Against 37 indicators of vulnerability measured, nearly one in ten gang-associated girls presented with 19 or more health and social difficulties compared to three per cent of all girls in the sample.
Average number of vulnerabilities by gender and gang membership.
Girls in gangs were more than four times as likely to have suffered neglect as general entrants to the system and more than one third more likely to have had such experiences than gang-associated boys. There were also more likely to be a looked-after child, and to have run away from home, than both other groups. One in ten female gang affiliates had parents who had been imprisoned, compared with two per cent of the overall sample.
The authors of the report conclude that: … the reasons young women join gangs overlap in some instances with those of male peers, but they can also be quite different. This means that efforts to prevent or address gang association among females need to be gender-specific.
A Need to Belong. What Leads Girls to Join Gangs by Lorraine Khan, Helena Brice, Anna Saunders and Andrew Plumtree, is published by the Centre for Mental Health and is available at: www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/pdfs/A_need_to_belong.pdf.