Our response covers a range of topics including custody as a last resort; Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) children in custody; the harm of the secure estate; staffing; restraint; placements; and resettlement.

Read our full response here.

We worked closely with the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) and a cross-sector alliance during the parliamentary stages of the Offensive Weapons Bill to assist parliamentarians on scrutiny of the bill’s provisions. Our work helped to secure the consultation on the guidance on KCPOs as well as the piloting of KCPOs, with a report on the pilot to be laid before Parliament prior to the further roll out of the orders.

We have consulted widely with our members to ensure that the breadth and depth of their expertise informs our submission to the consultation. Our full response can be found here

Our key comments on the draft guidance are as follows:

• We strongly recommend that that Home Office publishes separate and distinct KCPO guidance for children.
• Safeguarding of children and young people must be of paramount importance. There must be more clearly stated guidance around how local multi-agency safeguarding partnerships should inform the KCPO process, in order to protect children from harm.
• As the organisations with the necessary expertise, the assessment and views of the local Youth Offending Service and children’s services must be considered at every stage of the process and clearly represented to the court.
• Guidance should make clear that attempts to engage a young person in preventative and diversionary activities on a voluntary basis must be fully explored prior to an application for a KCPO being considered- opportunities for diversion should be continuously explored.
• Further clarity is needed on the evidence base required for the imposition of an order, given it can be imposed on a balance of probabilities.
• More clarification is needed for ‘relevant organisations and community groups’ – particularly given their concerns about the introduction of KCPOs and the roles that they might be expected to play in their implementation.

Responding to the draft guidance, Director of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, Pippa Goodfellow, said:

“Serious concerns remain about the destructive impact that KCPOs will have on vulnerable young people. Lessons from ASBOs have clearly not been learned; the same mistakes are being made that will lead to young people being criminalised at a disproportionate rate.

“Where are the voices of those who are most likely to be directly impacted by the orders?  Young people who are affected by violence need to have a say and be listened to when developing ‘solutions’ to issues that affect them.

“It is hard to see how these orders can be badged as preventative, when the guidance doesn’t make clear that attempts to engage a young person in preventative and diversionary activities on a voluntary basis must be fully explored prior to an application for a KCPO being considered.“

Mark Day, Head of Policy and Communications at the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“Far from being the preventative interventions which the government promised, these punitive “knife-crime ASBOs” threaten to be a back door to custody for thousands of children and young people. How can sending a child as young as 12 to prison for breaching a civil order imposed on the balance of probabilities be considered an effective, fair or proportionate response to the complex problem of knife carrying?”

There are also major concerns from the organisations that might be expected to provide and oversee ‘positive requirements’:

Andy Peaden, Chair of the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers, said:

“The legislation and guidance appear to regard children as mini-adults, failing to acknowledge their very different developmental stage of life. As a result, it fails to regard potential child subjects as ‘children first and offenders second’.

“We feel that the government needs to invest much more around prevention and universal early-years interventions. This would more closely constitute a genuine public health approach, ensuring children of all ages are provided with the support they need to stay away from serious violence, as well as helping to eliminate the climate in which violence breeds.

Lisa Capper, Director of Education and Skills at Nacro, said:

“Nacro would like to see less reliance on the KCPO mechanism as a panacea for knife crime and more resourcing of preventative proactive programmes for young people at risk, commissioned locally and led by expert grass-roots organisations.

“Nacro provides further education for over 4,300 young people and adults who are at risk in some shape or form. Young people have told us that access to education in a safe place and learning to stay safe from others is a large part of the solution – more supervisory orders are not.”

For more information or interview requests, please contact:

Pippa Goodfellow on:pippa.goodfellow@scyj.org.uk

Notes:

1. The Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ) is an alliance of over 60 non-profit organisations working together for a better youth justice system. More information about the SCYJ is available here. 
2. The orders have not been subject to any kind of meaningful public consultation, up to this point. Key stakeholders, including the Youth Justice Board, the Children’s Commissioner, the prison service, magistrates, local government and children’s services were not given any kind of input on the development of KCPOs prior to their introduction to the Offensive Weapons Bill. KCPOs were also not included as part of the government’s serious violence strategy.
3. In August 2019, the Home Office opened a consultation on guidance in relation to the operation of, and application for, new Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPOs) which have been introduced through the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. Details of the consultation on the draft guidance is available here.
4. The full SCYJ response to the consultation is available here.
5. An independent evaluation of ASBOs, commissioned by the Youth Justice Board, suggests several ways in which strategies to address problematic behaviour might be refined or further developed. A summary of the evaluation is available here.

SCYJ responded to the consultations setting out our position and recommendations around priority areas of the youth justice system.

In particular, SCYJ would like to see:

• The minimum age of criminal responsibility significantly increased
• A commitment to maximise diversion and minimise contact with the criminal justice system, in lieu of welfare-based service provision
• Investment in community-based, child-centred responses to children in trouble with the law
• A significant reduction in numbers of children deprived of their liberty, and the closure of all penal custodial establishments
• Criminal records and anonymity law reformed to promote reintegration
• Child-centred courts that promote understanding and participation

Read our full response here.

We have submitted a statement to Charlie Taylor’s independent review of pain-inducing restraint, urging the Ministry of Justice and the Youth Custody Service to prohibit the use of pain-inducing techniques on children and across child custody as a whole. We join a wide range of bodies and organisations that have called for a ban.

The deliberate infliction of pain on children breaches the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The deliberate use of pain is damaging to children and causes unnecessary harm. It is also a fundamentally flawed model of how to resolve conflict and develop trusted relationships between staff and children.

Read our full statement here.

We support a public health approach to tackling serious violence which seeks to address its root causes and welcome the government’s acknowledgement of the need to shift focus from a punitive response towards a multi-agency, more preventative approach. We welcome the intention to encourage organisations to share information, data and intelligence, and work in concert rather than isolation to identify children at risk as early as possible.

However, we do not believe that the proposals contained in this document amount to a public health approach. We are concerned there would be a number of unintended consequences for both children and the agencies involved if a statutory ‘public health duty’ is created, without achieving the desired result of reducing the number of children harmed by serious violence. SCYJ’s key objections to the proposal to create a legal duty are:

• A vision for tackling serious violence which is limited to the scope of the Serious Violence Strategy does not represent a holistic approach to protecting children from harm, which can consider the full range of partners and interventions needed, as well as the structural, political and economic factors that contribute. A broader strategy is needed which equips the safeguarding system, statutory and voluntary services to protect children from harm outside the home, with resources and guidance to do so. This should embed a response that takes account of the context in which children are at risk and is trauma-informed. A duty for serious violence, which presents these issues as distinct from wider safeguarding duties, could lead to a more punitive approach to these children which evidence suggests is inadequate to reduce violence.
• Implementation of a new duty without additional resources or definitive guidance is wholly inappropriate for services already tasked with rising demand, crisis management options, and low retention of staff.
• The potential consequences of a new duty in this context have not been fully considered, both for the organisations involved and children affected, including how the duty will fit within other recent policy such as Knife Crime Prevention Orders; and the impact on racial disparity.

SCYJ’s preferred option would be for the government to support voluntary approaches to multi-agency working, which leaves room for flexibility and adaptability, to ensure resources are directed most efficiently, reflective of and responsive to local needs.

Read our full response here.

Our response focuses on the HMCTS Reform Programme in the criminal courts as it affects child defendants, especially on the use of video links and online pleas.

We believe the use of video links and online pleas, along with the closure of courts, will negatively impact access to justice for children in trouble with the law. We are concerned by the approach taken by HMCTS, such as the lack of research, impact assessment, information sharing, public consultation and stakeholder engagement on key elements of the reform programme. When the programme began there appeared to be a complete lack of consideration of the needs of children as a distinct and vulnerable group, although we believe they are now taking some steps to address this.

Read our response here.

StreetDoctors is a charity that changes the lives of high risk young people by giving them the skills they need to deliver life-saving first aid. They use first aid as a tool to educate and empower young people, giving them the confidence and a sense of responsibility for their actions, helping to change their attitude towards violence. More information here.

Safer London is the leading London charity working to prevent and address gang violence, vulnerability and sexual exploitation. They provide needs led intensive support, early intervention and mentoring through our extensive, pan London services. You can find out more here.

Centrepoint is the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. Together with their partners, they support more than 10,000 homeless young people each year. Centrepoint help vulnerable young people by giving them the practical and emotional support they need to find a job and live independently. More information here.

The Justice Studio provide intelligence services to enable unions of nations, governments, and not-for-profit organisations better promote social justice. Their objective is to champion the rights and voices of their clients’ beneficiaries, including children and young people, those in the criminal justice system and those facing discrimination or inequitable situations. You can find out more here.

The SCYJ and our existing members look forward to collaborating with these organisations to promote more effective responses to children in trouble with the law.

Government loses criminal records disclosure case Supreme Court appeal – On Wednesday 30th January the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on the landmark criminal record disclosure case, announcing that the Government lost their appeal. The Judges ruled that the current disclosure system is disproportionate in two ways: by requiring disclosure of more than one convictions even if they were minor, and by failing to distinguish between warnings and reprimands issued to children, as opposed to convictions. The Government must now reform the system in line with the judgment.

SCYJ members Unlock and Just for Kids Law, who have been involved in the case, welcomed the announcement, issuing statements on their websites.

Following the judgment, SCYJ held a parliamentary roundtable hosted by David Lammy MP on the need to improve the childhood criminal record system, looking beyond the issues covered by the court case and examining the flaws that run deep throughout the current regime. The meeting heard from organisations and MPs who have been instrumental in the work towards these improvements and discussed the next steps to work together to achieve a system that promotes the rehabilitation and reintegration of children in trouble with the law.

Westminster Hall Debate – On Thursday 28th March MPs debated the Justice Select Committee inquiry report on disclosure of childhood criminal records. Chair of the Committee, Bob Neill, paid tribute to SCYJ and SCYJ member Unlock during his opening remarks, and other MPs highlighted our work during the debate. Youth Justice Minister Edward Argar stated he considers SCYJ’s input very carefully. Overall there was widespread agreement of the need for reform of the criminal record system. Neill has also written to Justice Secretary David Gauke asking what steps he is taking to ensure that the Disclosure and Barring Service suspends without delay the elements of the current regime deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court, and how and when he proposes to review the regime. Gauke responded that the MoJ and Home Office are considering the Supreme Court’s judgment and will respond once they have agreed next steps.

Our response welcomes a number of proposed changes, including:

• an increased focus on wider prevention and diversion;
• emphasis on the harm of custody and recommending the introduction of a minimum age of deprivation of liberty of 16;
• increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility the committee considers acceptable from at least 12 to 14, with higher ages encouraged;
• clarification that a child’s anonymity should be maintained after they turn 18, and recognition that States parties must take steps to prevent the naming of children on social media.

We also make a number of recommendations to strengthen the protection of children in contact with the law.

Read our full response here.

In summary:

• We welcome the child first Principles laid out, but do not feel they are fully reflected within the individual Standards.
• We welcome the YJB’s intention to emphasise outcomes rather than describe processes, but do not feel that the new Standards have, as yet, achieved this goal. We also question whether the youth justice system is established enough that process-driven requirements are unnecessary, when key elements continue to be beset by failure.
• The vague, subjective nature of the Standards will cause difficulties in monitoring. Updating the Key Elements of Effective Practice (KEEPs) would help remedy this, although this would still not address the core issue of difficulty in monitoring or holding services to account under the new standards. It also seems that monitoring will become more opaque, and the YJB’s process for intervention more unaccountable.
• It is unclear what the Guidance sections will contain, making it impossible to comment fully on the adequacy of the current draft.
• The out-of-court Standards focus on desistance from crime, rather than diversion into more suitable child-focused systems, and the promotion of positive behaviours.
• There is a concerning absence of children’s rights in the ‘at court’ Standards, and we require clarification on certain subjects, including suggestions on victims’ statements.
• We are pleased to see a move away from time requirements and the prescription of enforcement and intervention reviews in the ‘in the community’ Standards, but feel that the standards could be strengthened further.
• The Secure Settings Standards include some welcome recognitions, but we are concerned that the lack of clearly defined processes removes important safeguards for children, potentially making secure settings less safe and less accountable.
• We are pleased to see the introduction of a distinct Standard on transition and resettlement, but believe more requirements should be described.
• The YJB should produce a child-specific version of the standards.

Read our full response here.