§ 24. Dr. IddonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he is taking to deal with persistent young offenders. [151726]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeAs part of their youth justice reforms, the Government have introduced a range of new and improved community and custodial sentences to improve the options available to the courts. Most recently, we have introduced curfew orders for 10 to 15-year-olds. Work also continues to deliver the youth justice pledge, halving the arrest to sentence time for persistent young offenders. We have already cut nearly 50 days from the 1996 average. This year we will be introducing new intensive supervision and surveillance programmes, targeting the 2,500 most persistent young offenders in the community each year. In the Criminal Justice and Police Bill, we have proposed extending the juvenile secure remand criteria to include those with a recent history of repeatedly committing imprisonable offences while on bail or in local authority accommodation. We have also proposed electronic monitoring to supplement supervised bail.