§ Mr. BaldryTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his policy towards the future involvement of the probation service in providing alternatives to custody for young offenders.
§ Mr. John PattenThe Government would like to build on the experience of the probation service in supervising juvenile and young adult offenders in the community. We are encouraging and enabling the probation service to develop programmes for young offenders aged 17 to 20 which make them face up to the consequences of the offending behaviour, both for themselves and for their victims. We are strengthening community service orders. We want also to examine the scope for exercising more control over offenders in the community; punishing them for the harm they have done; enabling them to make recompense and helping them to tackle problems which stand in the way of their becoming law-abiding citizens. The probation service will have a central role in these326W developments and we are already having constructive discussions with it about our proposals which we hope to publish before long.