16. Annex C sets out in more detail some of our suggestions for effecting change. These cover improving infrastructure, improving communication and improving the use of current powers and resources. In all of this, the emphasis is on a gradated range of responses:
Prevention: the need for increasingly effective universal provision for all children and their families to reduce or compensate for conditions which expose children to harmful behaviours of all kinds. Particular attention should be paid to drugs and alcohol related risks for those below 16 and to school exclusion.
Early Intervention: quick targeted assistance for individual children whose behaviour or family circumstances indicate vulnerability towards offending and other problems.
Diversion: from both the Hearings and the court system to allow immediate action to address problems and re-equip children and young people for more positive citizenship.
Intervention: only when necessary and at the right time and right level.
Participation: better information on factors which contribute to youth crime. More joint action between voluntary and statutory agencies, communities and the commercial and business sectors to create safer communities in which individual needs, responsibilities and rights are respected and in which restorative justice features. "Communities that Care" offers a model for this approach.
17. At a strategic level, the group envisages 3 tiers of action. These involve:
What should happen at National level?
18. The group recommends the development of a national strategic framework to define objectives, mechanisms, functions and resources needed to address youth crime. Clear central guidance should:
What do we mean by a repertoire of services?
20. Each child or young person will require different elements. Provision may come from different sources and at different stages of work with individuals, depending on their own needs and their ability to participate and benefit from what is being provided. Preserving continuity of programmes will be important. Many of the elements will also be relevant to children and young people who need help and protection but are not offending.
21. What is essential is that each programme or intervention is based on a comprehensive risk assessment, is properly structured with specific outcomes identified and inbuilt monitoring of whether those outcomes are achieved. Stopping offending or reduced offending will be an expected outcome for all interventions.
What should happen at local level?
22. At local level we have identified 3 main tasks:
23. Because local authorities will have a key role and because a corporate approach is required, we recommend that the Chief Executive should have responsibility for all 3 tasks.
24. To achieve this the group concluded that there needed to be a multi-disciplinary team in each authority area or on an inter-authority basis where that seems more appropriate. The team's remit would be to consider all youth crime issues, covering preventive measures as well as rehabilitative programmes or interventions, and to oversee implementation of the local plan. Representation should be drawn from the following agencies: social work, education (including community education), housing, leisure and recreation, police, health, children's Reporter, procurator fiscal, voluntary sector organisations, panels, courts, prisons.
25. The team need not be a new creation and the plan need not be a separate plan. It might be integrated with a local authority's Strategic Planning process or with the Children's Services or Criminal Justice Planning process. It would be for the Chief Executive to determine how best to give effect to this. The team should have powers to commission new programmes or projects where gaps in provision were identified. Resources should wherever possible be pooled with contributions from local authorities, police and health using existing budgets for tackling youth crime as the primary source. Funding for new programmes or projects is dealt with in Section 5.
26. Because of the importance of pooled budgets and fully co-ordinated action, there could well be advantage in having a designated individual to support the Chief Executive and the work of the team. Again this need not be a new appointment. It could mean simply designating an existing officer whose primary focus was work with young offenders.
Information Resource
27. The group recommends that a national resource is developed which
28. Again this need not be a new and separate resource. The proposed Criminal Justice Development Centre based at Edinburgh University could accommodate this function as an integral part of its work. Much of the information resource would be relevant to troubled as well as troublesome children and young people.
How do we bridge the gap?
29. The consultation exercise highlighted the particular problems which exist in relation to persistent offenders in the 14 to 18 year group. Recognising that this group has special problems around issues of maturity, the present fracturing of the system for young people at the age of 16 tends to aggravate rather than resolve the problem. Annex D provides an analysis of some of the issues rising at the transition point between the Hearings and the court system.
30. Whilst significant improvements in criminal justice social work interventions have been achieved in the 1990s with the introduction of National Standards, 100% funding for criminal justice social work services and the development of services based on research evidence of "what works", it is recognised that the adult court system was not designed to deal with the particular needs of these often very immature young people. Statistics also show that young people aged 16 and 17 have a high risk of custody once they enter the adult system. We believe that many young offenders can be assisted to grow out of patterns of offending, provided that a full range of credible and demanding alternatives to custody, tailored to their needs and deeds, is made consistently available within a community setting.
31. We believe that young people can be assisted in making a successful transition into adulthood if the system sets out to:
This approach suggests that 16 and 17 year old offenders should be dealt with in the Hearings system, once it is strengthened and given access to a wider repertoire of services.
Improving the present system
32. Under the present arrangements, those 16 and 17 year olds who continue to come before the courts will continue to have a range of offences and a range of needs to be addressed. In dealing with them, the adult criminal justice system should seek to combine the principles of welfare and justice in a way which will increase the potential for positive change. In particular, the system should:
A bridging system for the future
33. The above package of measures seeks improvements within the existing structural framework. But we should do more to develop a coherent bridging system which crosses between the Hearings and the adult criminal justice systems. The Group recommends a detailed examination of the feasibility of a bridging pilot under which as many 16/17 year olds as possible would be referred to the Hearings rather than the courts.
34. We envisage that the bridging pilot would have the following elements:
35. The expectation would be that the young person would be dealt with in the community, with custody or containment available only in cases where it can be proved that the young person presents a risk to the public or to their own safety.
36. The new approach would call for new skills and attitudinal change on the part of all concerned. It would have major practical implications for the Hearings in terms of numbers of panel members, workload for Reporters, accommodation etc. It would also require the full support and co-operation of procurators fiscal and police. There are also vires and ECHR issues which need to be considered. All of this needs further detailed examination.
37. If the proposition proves feasible, it would need to be tested by targeted pilots on the basis of:
If it worked, additional costs to the Hearings could be more than outweighed by the savings to the adult system.