Juvenile Secure Accommodation (Hansard, 8 March 1999)

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn

The Government set out their programme of reform of the current arrangements for the provision of juvenile secure accommodation in theOfficial Report, 22 July 1998 WA 112. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 provided the courts with more appropriate remand and sentencing powers to deal with the most serious and persistent young offenders, as well as giving the police and the courts new powers to deal with other young offenders more effectively in the community. To complement these provisions, the Government are seeking to establish a range of secure accommodation appropriate to the age and maturity of young people and with regimes which address offending behaviour, and to develop intervention programmes which will support the new multi-agency youth offending teams under the 1998 Act in working with young offenders in the community.

Since July the Government have set up 18-month pilot projects in 10 areas to pave the way for introducing youth offending teams across England and Wales in April 2000 and the final warning scheme and new court orders in 2000–2001. The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales was established in September and is responsible for administering a development fund of £85 million over three years from April 1999 which is being used to develop bail support initiatives and other community-based intervention programmes to support the final warning scheme and new court orders.

The Government have also taken forward the necessary arrangements for implementing on 1 June 1999 the provisions in the 1998 Act for court-ordered remands to local authority secure accommodation of 12, 13 and 14 year-old boys and girls, 15 and 16 year-old girls and, where a place has been identified in advance, vulnerable 15 and 16 year-old boys. This will ensure that the courts have the powers they need in dealing with those young people the seriousness of whose alleged offending means that they cannot be dealt with safely in the community.

The Prison Service is finalising its plans for a distinct estate within its accommodation for 15 to 17 year-old boys remanded or sentenced to custody, with improved levels of care and regimes delivered within it. The Prison Service has also reviewed its arrangements for accommodating 15 to 17 year-old girls.

The Youth Justice Board has provided initial advice on a range of youth custody issues and a copy of this has been placed in the Library. It will help to inform the Government's longer term thinking about the provision of juvenile secure accommodation. The board is now preparing more detailed advice on regime standards which, together with work being undertaken by the Prison Service, will help in 6WA preparing for the detention and training order under the 1998 Act.

A key element in improved regimes and in the operation of the detention and training order will be better links between custodial facilities, where the first half of the sentence will be served, and the community, where the second half will be served. The new youth offending teams will have a vital role in managing these links—a member of the team will be expected to be involved in sentence planning and throughcare while the young offender is in custody and then supervise them when they return to the community. Given this connection, the Government have decided to accept the recommendation in the Youth Justice Board's advice that the detention and training order should be implemented at the same time as the local structure of youth offending teams; that is, April 2000. Ahead of this, the Prison Service will put in place arrangements for the distinct estate for boys in its accommodation and for improved regimes.

The Government have concluded that establishing distinct units for the very small number of 15 to 17 year-old girls held in Prison Service accommodation is not the best way forward or in their best interests. The introduction of the detention and training order will allow for greater flexibility in the placement of sentenced young people. It is our intention to make use of this flexibility by placing sentenced 15 and 16 year-old girls in available non-Prison Service accommodation, when the detention and training order is in force. The first priority will be to place the youngest and most vulnerable young women outside the Prison Service. In the short term, arrangements within the Prison Service for holding 17 year-old young women, and other young women for whom other accommodation is not available, will be improved by establishing discrete units for young women under the age of 21, with enhanced regimes within these.

The Government are also taking forward detailed work on the proposed extension of the role of the Youth Justice Board to act as the commissioning and purchasing body for all forms of secure accommodation for children and young people on remand and under sentence. This should help to achieve the appropriate volume, type and spread of accommodation in the longer term, so that individual needs can be met more effectively.