HC Deb 26 June 1986 vol 100 cc452-3
5. Mr. Maclennan

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his future policy for detention centres.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor)

Detention centres will continue to provide accommodation for those male young offenders on whom the courts impose short custodial sentences. The regime is being positively developed to provide a suitable programme of activity within the statutory aims and general principles of detention centres, and the system will continue to be kept under review.

Mr. Maclennan

Does that complacent and bland answer not suggest that the Minister has not made himself aware of his Department's findings that the rate of re-offending by those held in such institutions is at least as bad as that of others in other young offenders' institutions? Will he now recognise that the experiment has failed and that the brutalising regime of those detention centres should be discontinued?

Mr. Mellor

I am glad to be accused of blandness by the SDP's answer to Bird's instant whip. The aim of the detention centre regimes has been to establish the significance for young offenders of briskness, good appearance and punctuality, to which I am sure the SDP attaches importance. We shall continue to work along those lines.

Mr. Bill Walker

Does my hon. Friend agree that detention centres have an important part to play in how we handle young offenders, and that those who criticise detention centres rarely put forward viable proposals that would deal with this category of youngster?

Mr. Mellor

I agree with my hon. Friend. When a short sentence must be served, it is difficult to establish the kind of training regime that we have in youth custody centres. We must make the most constructive use of the limited time. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's recognition of that.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Does the Minister accept that the Government's much-publicised introduction of the short, sharp shock at detention centres has been shown by Home Office research to have failed to reduce re-offending among youngsters and to have had no impact on the general level of crime? Does not that failure strengthen the argument for a single generic youth custody sentence, so that even the shortest sentences can be made as constructive as possible?

Mr. Mellor

I appreciate that there is a lively and worthwhile argument about whether there should be a single or a dual sentence, but the hon. Gentleman will know that the difficulty remains, as I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), that there comes a point below which, in sentencing terms, it is impossible to adopt a proper training regime. The importance of the short, sharp shock—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

indicated dissent.

Mr. Mellor

Of course, the hon. Gentleman knows better. He always does on these issues. But if he will bear with me, I can tell him that the significance of the short, sharp shock regime is that it enables us to come to terms with the best regime that can be devised to deal with those short periods. Since last year, that is what we have endeavoured to do.

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