HC Deb 11 May 1998 vol 312 cc10-2
11. Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan)

What steps he is taking to ensure that there is early intervention with young offenders to prevent reoffending. [40273]

13. Mr. Colin Burgon (Elmet)

What steps he is taking to ensure that there is early intervention with young offenders to prevent reoffending. [40275]

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw)

As part of their youth justice programme, the Government have a number of measures in the Crime and Disorder Bill to ensure early intervention to stop offending behaviour. These measures include the final warning scheme for those above the age of criminal responsibility, the child safety order and local child curfews, both for under-10s, and parenting orders in respect of young offenders of any age. District-based crime prevention strategies and youth offending teams will provide a new focus for local action to reduce youth crime.

In addition, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced this morning, we shall be taking new powers in the Crime and Disorder Bill to allow the police to return truants to their schools or to another place of safety designated by the local education authority.

Mr. Smith

I am grateful for that reply. Members of the Dinas Powis neighbourhood watch scheme will be especially grateful. I met them last week, and they raised this very issue with me—reoffending by youngsters. The Home Secretary's reply deals precisely with that. Does he agree, moreover, that parents should take greater responsibility for the actions of children who offend?

Mr. Straw

Yes. On the specific point that my hon. Friend raises, we believe that parents should take much greater responsibility for offences committed by their children. That is why the Prime Minister spelled out today the importance of parents accepting responsibility when their children truant. In addition, the Crime and Disorder Bill will give the courts clear powers to make parenting orders in appropriate cases.

Mr. Burgon

Recently, the Home Secretary had the chance to visit the Wetherby young offenders institution to see the excellent work done there. I wonder what representations were made to him about mixing young offenders with juveniles in certain circumstances. How will he address the concerns that may have been drawn to his attention?

Mr. Straw

I did indeed visit the Wetherby young offenders institution just 10 days ago. I saw there the excellent work done by staff and volunteers, and was able to open the first Young Men's Christian Association centre in a prison in this country. The Prison Officers Association branch at Wetherby raised with me the issue of mixing juveniles with young adult offenders. There is no mixing in residential accommodation. There is some mixing in education and health care, and we are considering whether we can reduce that further.

Mr. Edward Gander (Harborough)

Does the Home Secretary realise that the Glen Parva young offenders institution straddles the boundary between my constituency and Blaby? Will he make arrangements to visit it soon? The Home Secretary knows that, recently, Glen Parva received a very unfavourable report from the chief inspector of prisons. It is a sad place, which needs to do a great deal better, and I am sure that, if the Home Secretary were to give personal encouragement by making a visit and seeing the place for himself, that would do a great deal to help prevent people from returning for a second visit.

Mr. Straw

I should be happy to visit Glen Parva, and will do so as soon as I can.

Obviously, the overall resources available to the Prison Service are an issue, and we are seeking to increase them. However, interestingly, similarly resourced young offenders institutions have very different outputs. On the one hand, we have institutions such as Glen Parva, which has had a history of difficulties; on the other, we have institutions such as Lancaster Farms, which, with no more resources, does much better and is able to ensure much lower levels of reoffending. What is important for the Prison Service is that we try to learn from the best institutions and pass on the lessons learned to the less good institutions.

Sir Brian Mawhinney (North-West Cambridgeshire)

Is the Home Secretary aware that, this morning, his Minister of State, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), told a conference in Wales: Criminal justice is about punishing criminals", just three weeks after he told my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) that, under the present Government, people who were sentenced to six months would spend only six weeks in custody? Will the Home Secretary encourage his Ministers to stop saying whatever they think people want to hear, and to get down to addressing the real issues which will help young people not to reoffend?

Mr. Straw

Criminal justice is indeed about punishing criminals. For a moment, I thought that perhaps one of my right hon. or hon. Friends was off message at the conference in Wales, but they said exactly the truth—of course criminal justice is about punishing criminals.

I believe that the right hon. Gentleman was referring to the detention curfews which we are planning for short-term prisoners in the last few weeks of their period of custody. Part of the purpose is to ensure that there is a proper transition between custody, where every decision is taken for the prisoner, and life outside, where the prisoner must start to take his or her own decisions. One matter that the previous Administration failed wholly to address was the unacceptably high reoffending rate, especially for inmates of youth offending institutions. We are tackling that by electronic tagging and by introducing the welfare-to-work scheme from within the YOIs.

Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that prevention is better than cure; that it is more cost-effective and efficient to divert vulnerable groups of young people away from offending before they start offending; and that, although some excellent schemes exist for that purpose, they are hopelessly underfunded—often on a hand-to-mouth basis? Does he agree that it would be a far cheaper, more efficient and more worthwhile investment to divert young people away from likely offending, rather than having to spend a lot of money later on locking them up?

Mr. Straw

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Interestingly, the research on the effectiveness of the previous Administration's safer cities programme shows that money invested in target hardening and in diversionary schemes has a much higher payback in terms of cost-effectiveness than some other schemes. We therefore intend to pursue sensible schemes for prevention, but we must ensure that there is effective punishment when an offender fails to be diverted and commits serious offences.