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Footnotes
1. Airdrie Sheriff Youth Court (2004) Information and Reference Document, Final Edition, May 2004.
2. Popham, F., McIvor, G., Brown, A, Eley, S., Malloch, M., Piacentini, L and Walters, R. (2005) Evaluation of the Hamilton Sheriff Youth Court Pilot, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Social Research
3. The option of conducting court-based probation reviews was suspended in August 2005 following an Appeal Court ruling.
4. Persistency is defined as 3 separate incidents of offending which have resulted in criminal charges within a six-month period. Charges arising from these incidents need not have resulted in a referral by the Reporter to the Children's Panel nor a prosecution.
5. A costing of the Youth Court is not contained in this report but will be presented in an integrated report which considers the operation and effectiveness of the Youth Court pilot as a whole. This is because the cost data could not be disaggregated across the two pilot sites.
6. The persistency criterion referred to 3 separate episodes of offending that had resulted in criminal charges within the previous 6 months. This criterion was not operated formally in Airdrie but was applied by Procurators Fiscal when deciding whether or not to mark a case for prosecution in the Youth Court. Cases could also be prosecuted in the Youth Court if it would be appropriate in terms of enhancing community safety and reducing the risk of re-offending ('contextual criterion').
7. The unique reference number assigned to an individual by the Scottish Criminal Records Office.
8. In Hamilton, interviews were subsequently conducted with social workers to obtain information about young people's progress in individual cases. This was not, however, feasible in Airdrie in light of available resources.
9. This includes cases in which a guilty plea was tendered on the trial date and 3 evidence-led trials.
10. On the first date sampled a total of 27 cases relating to 30 individuals were brought before the court. The second date yielded a total of 54 cases relating to 57 individuals. The third date saw 59 cases relating to 61 accused brought before the court.
11. McVie, S. Campbell, S. and Lebov, K. (2004) Scottish Crime Survey 2003, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.
12. H M Inspectorate of Constabulary (2003) Partners in Crime - Solving and Reassuring. A thematic inspection of crime management in Scotland, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.
13. Reconvictions but where the offence date involved pre-dates the sentence date of the reference record.
14. The Lord Advocate's Guidelines require that certain cases are jointly reported to the Reporter and the Procurator Fiscal. The categories of offences which are to be reported to procurators fiscal with a view to possible prosecution are:
Category 1: very serious offences e.g. treason, murder, rape, assault and robbery using firearms
Category 2: offences alleged to have been committed by children aged 15 years or over which in the event of conviction oblige or permit a court to order disqualification from driving
Category 3: offences alleged to have been committed by children over the age of 16 and under 18 years who are subject to a supervision requirement of a children's hearing.
However any case may be reported to the Procurators Fiscal if the police are of the opinion that for special reasons, which must be stated, prosecution might be considered. The Procurator Fiscal has discretion to pass suitable cases to the Reporter. Only the Lord Advocate can authorise criminal proceedings against a child under 16 (The Children's Hearings System in Scotland 2003 Training Resource Manual 2nd edition, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/chtm-13.asp#3).
15. No further information was available as to the types of court in which these cases were prosecuted. However the additional comments made by Procurators Fiscal would suggest that most were solemn cases.
16. As we shall see, most of these prosecuted in the Youth Court had no previous adult convictions.
17. Please see footnote on page 12 for an overview of the Lord Advocate's Guidelines.
18. These figures use a base of 340.
19. These individuals were in the target age group when first referred to the Youth Court or were co-defendants of those in the target age group. The oldest person was 46 years of age.
20. Up to a maximum of 8 referrals in 2 cases.
21. This was the sample upon which the reconviction analysis reported in Chapter Five was based. The information provided by the Justice Statistics Unit of the Scottish Executive included details of previous adult convictions.
22. This compares with 61 per cent of under 18 year olds sentenced in the Airdrie Sheriff Summary Court between June 2004 and May 2005.
23. A further 17 cases included in the data gave a suggested RAD number along with a note that the dates of birth on the SCRA system and the Youth Court co-ordinator's database did not match. As the veracity of these entries was unconfirmed, these were not included in the analyses presented.
24. No data were available in respect of those aged 18 years or more at the time of their first referral to the Youth Court.
25. The maximum number of charges in one referral was 20.
26. In cases involving 15 year olds hearings are held in closed court.
27. The court was busy because it only sat on one day per week and dealt with a large volume of cases.
28. Following the assault of a young person outside the courtroom a second police officer was brought in to help maintain order in the court.
29. Twenty-nine referrals were ongoing. In addition, 7 other cases had been transferred into the Youth Court for sentence, 8 had been transferred out of the court before guilt was established and 6 involved new petition cases. The remaining percentages are based on 493 referrals ( i.e. excluding these 50 cases).
30. Popham, F., McIvor, G., Brown, A, Eley, S., Malloch, M., Piacentini, L and Walters, R. (2005) Evaluation of the Hamilton Sheriff Youth Court Pilot, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Social Research.
31. Information was not available in respect of twenty-two referrals..
32. This option has now been extended to 3 other areas in Scotland on a pilot basis.
33. Popham et al., 2005, op.cit.
34. Due to the relatively small number of cases for which a charge date was available and the susceptibility of mean averages to be skewed by the presence of outliers, medians are used when discussing charge dates from the data supplied by the Procurator Fiscal. Other data ( e.g.PF referral dates, dates from co-ordinator's database) proved less problematic and are, therefore, reported using means.
35. Some maxima may reflect the erroneous recording of offence date as the charge date, thus medians are used in this section.
36. Twenty-two cited referrals were ongoing. In addition, 7 other cases had been transferred into the Youth Court for sentence, 5 had been transferred out of the court before guilt was established and 2 involved new petition cases. The remaining percentages are based on 283 cited referrals ( i.e. excluding these 36 cases).
37. As discussed in footnote 34, medians were used in reporting charge date-related time periods in the Youth Court. Therefore, although the means for the adult courts are included (they proved not to be susceptible to skewness due to outliers), where appropriate, medians are also reported for the purposes of comparison.
38. The remaining 22 cases were ongoing for various reasons, such as outstanding warrants, failures to attend etc.. The remaining percentages are based on 126 cited referrals ( i.e. excluding these 22 cases).
39. These reports are required prior the imposition of a custodial sentence or a community-based social work disposal such as probation.
40. Youth Level of Service/Case Management Instrument and Level of Service Inventory - Revised. The former was used with young people who were at school or who had left school within the previous 6 months: the latter was used with other young people.
41. This was welcomed by those social work practitioners who had little experience of SER writing and who acknowledged that they needed guidance in relation to the content and format of reports.
42. This was all SER requests made to the Airdrie social work office between July and December 2005.
43. Some young people had more than one problem identified.
44. These are likely to have been deferments for reports rather than for good behaviour or for some work to be undertaken with the young person.
45. All but 2 of the RLOs imposed were for 12 hours and they varied in length from 2 to 6 months. Two of the 14 RLOs were imposed in respect of multiple referrals rolled up together. Eleven of the RLOs were imposed by the same Sheriff.
46. The following severity ranking was used: detention, community service order, restriction of liberty order, probation order, deferment, fine and admonition.
47. A further 10 referrals resulted in a CSO being imposed without an accompanying Probation Order.
48. One further referral was transferred into the Youth Court for disposal as a result of a breach of probation. One of the breaches of an RLO discussed relates to 2 referrals 'rolled up' together.
49. The remaining 6 young people (17%) were previously known to authorities, but it was not clear which.
50. In the remaining 6 cases (17%) it was not known on what grounds the young person was known to the Children's Hearing System and/or Social Work.
51. The power of review extended to Probation Orders, deferred sentences and DTTOs.
52. Legislative provision for the conducting of probation review hearings was subsequently introduced through Section 12 of the Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act 2005 with effect from 8 February 2006.
53. Defined as 3 episodes within a period of 6 months.
54. The figures were supplied by the Justice Statistics Unit towards the end of the evaluation. The sentencing data for 2005 and likely to be incomplete and the data for 2003-4 are still provisional.
55. These data are not complete however this is the first full year in which the Youth Court was operational.
56. Audit Scotland (2001) Youth justice in Scotland: A baseline report, Edinburgh: Audit Scotland.
57. see description in paragraph 2.18
58. 12 others did not attend any sessions and 8 failed to complete.
59. This is unlikely, however, to be specific to the Youth Court.
60. Hill, M., Walker, M., Moodie, K., Wallace, B., Bannister, J., Khan, F., McIvor, G. and Kendrick, A. (2005) Fast Track Children's Hearings Pilot, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Social Research.
61. Popham, F., McIvor, G., Brown, A, Eley, S., Malloch, M., Piacentini, L and Walters, R. (2005) Evaluation of the Hamilton Sheriff Youth Court Pilot, Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Social Research
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