§ 1. Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham)What plans he has to extend the use of intensive supervision and surveillance programmes for young offenders. [82302]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hilary Benn)The intensive supervision and surveillance programme is a Home Office-funded Youth Justice Board initiative. It is the strongest community sentence for serious and prolific young offenders, and it is aimed at the 3 per cent. of young people who are responsible for 25 per cent. of juvenile offences. The scheme has just been extended to cover all 10 areas covered by the street crime initiative. It now covers four fifths of England and Wales, including all the big conurbations.
§ Dr. CableIn the light of Friday's court ruling pointing to the inappropriateness of prison for children, will the Minister now agree to extend completely, to all youth areas, this valuable programme, which has been shown to be much more effective than prison in deterring reoffending and which costs the taxpayer only one quarter as much as a young offenders institution place?
§ Hilary BennI welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for the intensive supervision and surveillance programme. Early indications are encouraging, but we must wait for the full assessment, which is to be undertaken by Oxford university, with the results available in 2004. One of the reasons that we introduced the programme was to minimise the chances of young people having to go into custody, although we recognise that that may be necessary for a small proportion of offenders.
§ Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North)Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the best ways to supervise young offenders is to have a vigilant police authority, but that police authorities in many areas are composed of people who do not come from high-crime areas? I do not expect him to answer off the cuff today, but will he 592 undertake to examine the balance of representation on police authorities, especially in areas such as mine, where there are very few people representing the city of Nottingham, but where the majority of the shire's crime takes place?
§ Hilary BennI agree that it is important that police authorities should be representative of the communities they serve, not only in dealing with young offenders, but in dealing with all types of crime. I am happy to write to my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield)Does the Minister agree that for that minority who have to be imprisoned, the key to rehabilitation lies in structured programmes both while they are in custody and on their release? In that context, should there not be concern if the early release programme under tagging of 60 days, extendable to 90 days, is leading to young offenders being released part way through programmes undertaken while they are in custody?
§ Hilary BennThe hon. Gentleman is aware that when applying the early release programme under home detention curfew, prisons will, in anticipation of prisoners coming out, take account of that in their programmes. On his first point, he is absolutely right: structured programmes are important to tackle the problems created by young offenders. That is precisely why in recent years we have invested £50 million in improving those programmes under the auspices of the YJB.