Turning young against crime

AT last, someone has admitted the youth justice system is a waste of time," an angry correspondent to the Evening Press wrote last month. He was responding to our report about a 17-year-old from west York who claimed to be "hopelessly addicted to crime", having committed a series of burglaries and threatened people with violence.

"I knew that when I got arrested I would be out in five hours... I want them to know what a joke the system is," he said.

That view was then echoed by the mother of a 14-year-old tearaway who had undertaken a string of crimes, including arson. She said her son had even been treated to burger and chips and free cinema tickets as part of a failed attempt to rehabilitate him.

These cases added to the perception that a hard core of young offenders are all but free to carry on terrorising their neighbourhoods. So is our correspondent right: is the youth justice system a waste of time?

Quite the opposite, says Jill Holbert, head of York Youth Offending Services. A new, co-ordinated approach to the problem, only introduced a few years ago, is beginning to divert young people away from a career of crime.

Ms Holbert is in charge of the city's Youth Offending Team (Yot). There are 155 of these around England and Wales, set up under the 1998 Crime & Disorder Act, each governed by 13 performance targets. York's team has been up and running for three years. Its remit is to prevent offending and re-offending, and in doing so increase community safety.

A main thrust of the Act was to ensure that the various relevant agencies - local authorities, police, health services and so on - worked together to crack youth crime.

"Youth crime isn't just a one-organisation problem. It's a problem that belongs to us all, and we need to tackle it with a multi-agency approach," Ms Holbert said.

Now a young offender can face a raft of tough community punishments as well as jail. But the constant emphasis is on stopping them committing more crime. "We have to give that young person the opportunity to turn that behaviour around."

The 23-strong Yot has a role as soon as a youngster is in the system - even before he or she appears in court.

If the police choose to reprimand a misbehaving youth and nothing more, the Yot receives notification but will not intervene.

The team becomes involved at the next stage, when a youth, aged between ten and 17, is given a final warning, which replaced the official police caution. A Yot officer will then go and talk to the youngster and their family, with the aim of drawing up a programme to address the offending and stop it happening again.

Unfortunately this is a voluntary intervention - the family and young person can refuse to co-operate. "The majority are receptive," said Ms Holbert.

Stage three is the initial court appearance. At this point, the young offender has no choice but to listen to the Yot officer.

If it's a first offence, and it is not serious enough to merit custody, they would usually be made subject to a referral order.

The order puts the offender's case before a panel including a Yot officer, the offender, their parents or guardians, volunteers from the community and sometimes the victim of the crime.

Crime victims are usually asked if they would like to attend the panel hearing.

Some decline. They can take part in other ways, by sending a letter explaining how the offence has affected them, for example.

The input of lay people from around York is also crucial, said Ms Holbert. They are given training, and their knowledge of the community brings a different perspective to the justice system.

As part of the referral order, a contract is drawn up involving elements of both punishment and rehabilitation.

One penalty involves direct reparation: York young offenders have been sent to paint the windows of shops they have stolen from or vandalised in the past. An "indirect reparation" is also possible, where the offender might write a letter of apology to their victim as part of their sentence.

The contract is regularly reviewed, and if the offender is found to have breached the terms, they will be taken back to court and a harsher penalty is likely to be imposed.

There are a range of measures to deal with repeat offending or more serious crimes. These include

u a supervision order, which can last up to three years;

u an action plan order, "a three month intensive plan of action to address underlying needs";

u an intensive supervision and surveillance programme (ISSP), designed for the most persistent repeat offenders;

u and the detention and training order, where the young offender is given a custodial sentence with a training programme.

These measures work, according to the Government and Ms Holbert. Nationally, the Youth Offending Teams have seen a 22.5 per cent reduction in reconviction rates for young people on community sentences between 1997 and 2002. Ms Holbert said this was mirrored in York: the offending rate of one group of young people tracked from 2001 had dropped by nearly seven per cent last year.

Many different factors affect what sentence the Yot recommends. "We always have to put protection of the public high up there on the agenda," she said

Nevertheless, prison is a last resort. Young offenders sent into custody once are likely to be sent back again, research has shown.

Community sentences are not a soft option, Ms Holbert insists. While they are designed to address the factors that encourage a youngster to offend - such as taking them away from bad peer group influences, or helping them to quit alcohol or substance addictions - they are also a punishment.

"There's a requirement that every order has an element of reparation. Punishment is part of the order.

"Young people are required to give something back to society, even if there's no contact with the victim at all.

"All the orders are tough. Every order stipulates the frequency that a young offender must stay in contact with the Yot."

Instead of prison, a curfew can be imposed by electronic tag - indeed the 17-year-old west York offender we interviewed admitted the curfew forced him to cut out crime.

The last step before custody, the ISSP, involves the young person in a compulsory 25-hours a week of timetabled activity. "Many young people say it's worse than being in prison," says Ms Holbert. "When young people are in custody, it doesn't place the responsibility on them that the ISSP applies."

As for those free burger and chips and cinema tickets, these can be used as a reward for offenders who give up their free time to take part in a consultation exercise with one of Yot's partners.

Already busy, Yot's workload is to increase as they seek to intervene and steer eight to 13-year-olds away from crime before it's too late.

Ms Holbert says that results of the new system are now beginning to be seen, three years after it began in York. "I am very confident that Youth Offending Teams are being very successful."

Updated: 11:17 Wednesday, October 15, 2003