The Fear Factory Blog

Dismantling the Fear Factory

2010-10-20T07:41:00.001-07:00

Ken Clarke’s critique of the longstanding 'prison works' orthodoxy has received considerable media coverage. The Justice Secretary’s reform agenda has been divisive but it was widely welcomed by many working in the criminal justice sector – including the organisations in the Fear Factory coalition.

This growing third sector coalition is calling for cross-party commitment to creating and implementing an effective, long term Criminal Justice strategy based on evidence. It was formed as a result of a documentary film by the same name.

The film explored the crisis in our criminal justice system that has led to a record prison population. It uncovered how disproportionate fear of crime, and notably a fear of young people, has been stoked by the media and politicians in a “law and order arms race”.

It was that very arms race that Jack Straw attempted to rekindle in the aftermath of Ken Clarke’s announcements as Justice Secretary. The title of Jack Straw’s article in the Daily Mail was ‘Mr Clarke and the Lib Dems are wrong. Prison DOES work - and I helped prove it.’ A backlash for which he was castigated by a former head of the prison service, Martin Narey, at a Labour Party Conference fringe event.

With this backdrop, Ed Miliband’s election as the new leader of the Labour party could represent a positive result for penal reform. This is a view that has been expressed by Andrew Neilson of the Howard League for Penal Reform among others. The temptation for Ed Miliband would be to outflank the government on the right by returning to New Labour tough on crime rhetoric. However, Ed Miliband’s position seems to differ strongly from that of Jack Straw:

"I don't think we should try to out-right the right on crime" ...."A lot of what [Clarke] is doing is motivated by budget cuts; but he is opening up an opportunity for us to redefine part of the debate about criminal justice.”

An article by Ed Miliband in the Sunday Telegraph suggested that Ken Clarke’s proposals on criminal justice reform are one of the areas of public policy where he will be largely supportive. This is an opportunity to create an amnesty on the arms race. My hope is that Ken Clarke will hold his nerve and that Ed Miliband will help to build a new political consensus on penal policy.

Robert Patrick

Former prisons chief attacks Jack Straw over penal reform stance

2010-09-29T02:46:00.000-07:00

Martin Narey confronts shadow justice secretary over his criticism of Ken Clarke's views on cutting the prison population

Martin Narey, former head of the Prison and Probation service, who last night attacked Jack Straw's stance on penal reform. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

The former prison service director-general Martin Narey last night angrily confronted Jack Straw over his "Daily Mail assassination" of Ken Clarke's landmark prisons speech that could have paved the way for a new cross-party consensus on penal reform.

Narey told Straw that he was "terribly disappointed by your assassination of Ken Clarke in the Daily Mail the next day".

He said Straw as a former justice secretary should have "given Ken Clarke a break when he says that the prison population should go down".

Narey said that home secretaries and justice secretaries could "talk the prison population up or talk it down", and the courts responded. He said Douglas Hurd had "talked down'' the prison population by 4,000 when he was home secretary in the late 1980s: "You can set the scene," Narey told Straw.

The impassioned clash took place at a Fabian Society/Prison Reform Trust Labour conference fringe meeting. Straw did not take the criticism lightly, claiming that Clarke had been widely regarded as a failure as home secretary: "Let me tell you, Martin, we were the first party to get crime down since the war."

For good measure Straw also denounced the record of Hurd, who is currently president of the Prison Reform Trust, saying that although he "greatly respected him, the truth was that when he was home secretary crime rocketed up and the Tories lost the plot on crime".

The exchange had been prompted by Straw seeking to justify his record as home secretary and justice secretary during which the prison population rose from 62,000 to 85,000.

He said he had not wanted to see the prison population go up on his watch. Indeed his policy had been to try to stabilise prison numbers. But he said the size of the prison population was not an objective of his law and order policy but the consequence of Labour's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" approach.

"I am not suggesting that I was some kind of hard bastard ... but you have to take the public with you," he said. He added that when Narey had been his director-general of prisons a lot of work had been done on trying to establish the relationship between prison sentence lengths and reoffending rates to establish what worked.

He insisted, however, that 75% of those in prison were persistent violent offenders who were a danger to the community who, he said, deserved a measure of respite care, which was afforded by sending them to jail for a few weeks.

Straw also defended Labour's record on prison conditions saying the jails were completely different places now to what they were in 1997 including the provision of in-cell televisions which he had pushed ahead with in the face of Downing Street opposition.

Others at the fringe meeting however saw an opportunity for a new political consensus on penal policy in the wake of Ken Clarke's speech with the new Labour leader, Ed Miliband, on record saying he thinks may provide the basis for a cross-party policy on prisons.

The Guardian
28 September 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/sep/28/prisons-jack-straw-penal-reform

Khulisa UK is proud to be the 60th member of the Fear Factory Coalition!

2010-08-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t heard of us yet, Khulisa is a Zulu word loosely meaning ‘to nurture’, and we are an independent arm of Khulisa Crime Prevention Initiative South Africa, which has a 13 year track record of being at the forefront of restorative justice, violence-reduction and youth diversion projects across the country’s 9 provinces.

Drawing on this heritage Khulisa UK is in the process of tailoring its programmes to UK audiences, and piloting them with groups of young people and adults in communities, prisons and YOIs. Our flagship programme Silence the Violence is a behaviour change programme using therapeutic techniques to help people realise the extent of their violence and its origins, as well as ways to manage their violent triggers.

To find out more about our work visit our new website www.khulisa.co.uk and if you’d like to get in touch with us we’d love to hear from you!

Contact:
Helen Streeter, Programme Manager
020 7938 8705 / hstreeter@khulisa.co.uk

The Fear Factory - Cinepolitics

2010-08-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

Gracia McGrath, CEO of Chance UK and Mike McCahill, The Sunday Telegraph's Film Critic appeared on the Cinepolitics Show on Press TV on Saturday, 7th August to review The Fear Factory documentary.

You can watch the whole show here...

http://www.imafilm.com/cinepolitcs_142.html

Youth justice group calls for custody threshold to be raised

2010-08-04T01:17:00.000-07:00

Youth justice group Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ) is calling for a new law to dramatically increase the custody threshold for young offenders.
The group, whose members include the Howard League for Penal Reform, says that legislation is necessary to ensure prison is only used as a last resort for young people.

It wants to see custody only considered for young offenders if the offence is punishable with life imprisonment and where there is a risk to the public if they remain in the community.

Courts should also be forced to obtain a clinical assessment of young offenders and consider their background as mitigation.

The move would cut the youth custody population in half, says the SCYJ. It would also save around £93m a year, which takes into account developing alternative community sentences.

In 2009/10 £305m was spent on youth custody, an increase of three per cent on the previous year. The number of children handed a custodial sentence tripled between 1991 and 2006 in England and Wales. The number of children in custody on remand has increased by 41 per cent since 2000, the SCYJ adds.

By Joe Lepper
Children & Young People Now
3 August 2010

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/bulletins/Daily-Bulletin/news/1020156/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

The Fear Factory: The Charterhouse Group joins the Fear Factory Coalition

2010-07-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

Press Release: 23 July 2010

The Fear Factory Coalition is delighted to welcome The Charterhouse Group for Therapeutic Services as it’s newest member. The Charterhouse Group is a charity established 20 years ago to promote, develop and support specialist therapeutic work with vulnerable children and young people. Started by a gathering of expert practitioners working in pioneering residential settings, it predominantly works with those young people with the most profound and complex emotional and behavioural issues – those young people with the greatest psychological need, often after many multiple foster and other placement breakdowns.

Today, Charterhouse is made up of almost 20 therapeutic residential providers across the UK. The members employ well over 400 specialist staff and provide in excess of 100 placements, in a wide variety of residential settings, often with education and clinical support.

Charterhouse is at the forefront of care and service provision to those most vulnerable children and young people who have been failed by society. Kevin Gallagher, CEO of Charterhouse stated: “Charterhouse members are delighted to lend our support to raising awareness about this important issue. Working with people and their relationships, with themselves, their families and their communities will prevent the need for increasing numbers of young people to be locked up. This is better for society and more cost effective in the longer term”

The Fear Factory Coalition is calling for:

A cross-party commitment to creating and implementing an effective, long term Criminal Justice strategy based on evidence.

An "Amnesty" on the "arms race" - ending policies driven by short-term political gain, media sensationalism and "tough-talk".

--ENDS

Notes
• For further comment or interviews please contact Kevin Gallagher, the Charterhouse Group at 01952 504715 / kevin.gallagher@brynmelyncare.com; or Rachel Bird, The Fear Factory Coalition at rachel@spiritlevelfilm.com / 020 7569 3039
• The Fear Factory Coalition has 59 members and 2 affiliates; for further information and a list of those involved contact Rachel Bird or visit www.thefearfactory.co.uk. We have a comprehensive list of high profile speakers who would be willing to provide an interview or comment.
• The Fear Factory Coalition was inspired by the Fear Factory documentary; excerpts and trailers can be found online, or we can provide a full copy on request.
• The Fear Factory film and Coalition have been generously funded by The Nationwide Foundation: www.nationwidefoundation.org.uk.

Novel approach: reading courses as an alternative to prison

2010-07-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

In Texas, offenders are being sent on reading courses instead of prison. Could it work in the UK?

Anna Barker
The Guardian, Wednesday 21 July 2010
Article history

Mitchell Rouse who faced a 60-year prison sentence for drug offences was instead put on probation and sentenced to read. Photograph: Michael Stravato/Polaris

With one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and the death penalty, the US state of Texas seems the last place to embrace a liberal-minded alternative to prison. But when Mitchell Rouse was convicted of two drug offences in Houston, the former x-ray technician who faced a 60-year prison sentence – reduced to 30 years if he pleaded guilty – was instead put on probation and sentenced to read.

"I was doing it because it was a condition of my probation and it would reduce my community hours," Rouse recalls.

The 42-year-old had turned to drugs as a way of coping with the stress of his job at a hospital where he frequently worked an 80-hour week. But cooking up to a gram of crystal meth a day to feed his habit gradually took its toll on his life at home, which he shared with his wife and three young children. Finally, fearing for his life, Mitchell's wife turned him into the authorities. "If she hadn't, I would be dead or destitute by now," he says.

Five years on, he is free from drugs, holding down a job as a building contractor, and reunited with his family. He describes being sentenced to a reading group as "a miracle" and says the six-week reading course "changed the way I look at life".

"It made me believe in my own potential. In the group you're not wrong, you're not necessarily right either, but your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's," he says.

Rouse is one of thousands of offenders across the US who, as an alternative to prison, are placed on a rehabilitation programme called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). Repeat offenders of serious crimes such as armed robbery, assault or drug dealing are made to attend a reading group where they discuss literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bell Jar and Of Mice and Men.

Rouse's group was run by part-time lecturer in liberal studies at Rice University in Houston, Larry Jablecki, who uses the texts of Plato, Mill and Socrates to explore themes of fate, love, anger, liberty, tolerance and empathy. "I particularly liked some of the ideas in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty," says Mitchell, who now wants to do a PhD in philosophy.

Groups are single sex and the books chosen resonate with some of the issues the offenders may be facing. A male group, for example, may read books with a theme of male identity. A judge, a probation officer and an academic join a session of 30 offenders to talk about issues as equals.

Of the 597 who have completed the course in Brazoria County, Texas, between 1997 and 2008, only 36 (6%) had their probations revoked and were sent to jail.

A year-long study of the first cohort that went through the programme, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1991, found that only 19% had reoffended compared with 42% in a control group. And those from the programme who did reoffend committed less serious crimes.

CLTL is the brainchild of Robert Waxler, a professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As an experiment, he convinced his friend, Judge Kane, to take eight criminals who repeatedly came before him and place them on a reading programme that Waxler had devised instead of sending them to prison. It now runs in eight states including Texas, Arizona and New York.

In the UK, nearly half of prisoners reoffend within a year of being released from jail. Could programmes like CLTL work on this side of the Atlantic where Ken Clarke, in his first major speech as justice secretary, indicated that more offenders could be given community sentences by putting a greater emphasis on what he terms "intelligent sentencing"?

Lady Stern, senior research fellow at the international centre for prison studies at King's College London, is not convinced. "Research does show that the public are largely pro-rehabilitation, but when you take an idea that involves offenders attending a university campus to be part of a reading group, instead of being sentenced to prison, it asks a lot of even the most thoughtful and socially conscious public," she says.

The initiative was initially met with an inevitable flurry of criticism in the US. Waxler and his supporters were described as "bleeding-heart liberals".

"They were shocked at the idea of offenders going on to university campuses to read books for free while the students were paying their way through education," says Waxler. "Some even thought the offenders would steal from them. It only takes one person to prove them right, but it's never happened."

In Texas, the public have been largely won over by the success rates and how cheap the programme is to run. Instead of spending a lifetime in prison at a cost of more than $30,000 (£19,520) a year, Rouse's "rehabilitation" cost the taxpayer just $500 (£325).

But it is the experiences of offenders, some of whom have never read a book before, that Waxler points to.

"In one group we read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway," he recalls. "The story focuses on Santiago, an old fisherman in Cuba, and opens with some heartache: Santiago is not able to catch fish. We talk about him and the endurance he seems to represent, the very fact that he gets up every morning despite the battering he takes.

"The following time the group meet, one of the offenders wants to share something. He'd been walking down Main Street and he said he could hear, metaphorically speaking, the voices of his neighbourhood. He'd been thinking about returning to his old life, to drugs, but as he listened to those voices, he also heard the voice of Santiago. If Santiago could continue to get up each day and make the right choice then he could do too."

Santiago, a character in a novel, had become the offender's role model. For many offenders, some of whom have spent half their lives in jail, it is the first time they've had a worthy model, says Waxler.

Literacy is a problem. Offenders are unlikely to be sentenced to the programme if they cannot read. However, those with poor reading are not excluded. The groups may read short stories, or excerpts from a novel may be read aloud so that low-level readers can participate.

In the UK, a version of the programme called Stories Connect is running in a handful of prisons with some success, and in Exeter it has recently moved out into the community for people with drug and alcohol problems. But it does not yet have the support of the criminal justice system, so cannot be an alternative sentencing option for the courts.

Retired probation officer Louise Ross voluntarily runs the small group in Exeter. Participants are referred from the Exeter and North Devon Addiction Service, and were, until three-year funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation ran out in April, made to attend as part of a community service order. Now all attendance is voluntary, but stories of how the programme changes lives are no less impressive.

After years of opiate abuse, Steve Rowe, 50, who joined the first Exeter group three years ago, says: "Stories Connect didn't just change my life, it saved it." He explains: "We looked at a section of Oliver Twist, the relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy. One of us pretended we were Bill while everyone else asked questions. The idea was you responded as much as you could from that character's point of view. It makes you think about what others think and feel, and really helps you to reflect on yourself."

Mary Stephenson, a writer, who runs Stories Connect, says more funding is needed. To date, in Exeter, 96 people have been through the programme, but of these only 29 completed the course. This, she says, is largely due to the chaotic lives of the participants, many of whom are battling with drug problems, and the fact that the groups are not an alternative to prison, which removes the main incentive.

There are plans, again subject to funding, for the University of Exeter to run a research project into the effectiveness of the programme in the UK, both inside prisons and out. But until then, there are no quantitative results that prove the programme reduces reoffending.

Next week, Stephenson is attending a roundtable meeting with prisons and probation minister Crispin Blunt, at which she will make the point that the programme could be achieving so much more.

"In terms of tackling reoffending, we need both more funding and the political support to explore it," says Stephenson. "There's no doubt among the people I've worked with that the success in America could be repeated here."

Waxler agrees: "I think that one of the great testaments of this programme is that it demonstrates clearly that literature can make a difference to people's lives," he says. "I already believed that, but I knew it could also be used to rehabilitate offenders."

Rouse says it is hard to judge how much the reading group should take credit for turning his life around as he'd already made the decision to change.

"I didn't want to lose my family," he says. "But the group did give me the guidance and direction I needed in my life, and without it I'd have spent the rest of my life in jail. It gave me a second chance."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/21/texas-offenders-reading-courses

Manual that tells warders how to hurt teenage inmates branded 'state authorised child abuse'

2010-07-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

By James Slack
Last updated at 8:02 PM on 18th July 2010

A manual instructing prison staff how to inflict pain on teenage inmates has been described as 'state authorised child abuse'.

The Ministry of Justice was forced to release details of its approved 'restraint and self-defence techniques' for unruly children in secure training centres after a lengthy freedom of information battle.

The document, Physical Control in Care, authorises staff to 'use an inverted knuckle into the trainee's sternum and drive inward and upward.' It adds: 'Continue to carry alternate elbow strikes to the young person's ribs until a release is achieved.'

Brutal book: Officers at youth prisons, such as HMP Young Offenders' Institution in Feltham, were given guidelines on how to restrain children as young as 12

Written in 2005 and classified as secret, it also tells staff to 'drive straight fingers into the young person's face, and then quickly drive the straightened fingers of the same hand downwards into the young person's groin area.'

Staff are warned that the techniques risk causing suffocation, skull fracture and 'temporary or permanent blindness caused by rupture to eyeball or detached retina'.

Carolyne Willow, national coordinator of the Children's Rights Alliance for England, said: 'The manual is deeply disturbing and stands as state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse. What made former ministers believe that children as young as 12 could get so out of control so often that staff should be taught how to ram their knuckles into their rib cages?

'Would we allow paediatricians, teachers or children's home staff to be trained in how to deliberately hurt and humiliate children?'

The campaign for publication of the manual began following the deaths of Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood in 2004.

Gareth, 15, died while being held down by three staff at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre in Warwickshire. He choked on his own vomit.

Adam, 14, from Burnley, hanged himself at the Hassockfield Secure Training Centre in County Durham.

Restraint techniques: In a passage on applying a head hold, the manual warns that the offender's breathing may be 'compromised' (picture posed by models)

Phillip Noyes, director of strategy and development at the NSPCC, said: 'These shocking revelations graphically illustrate the cruel and degrading violence inflicted at times on children in custody.

'These restraint techniques have resulted in children suffering broken arms, noses, wrists and fingers.

'Painful restraint is a clear breach of children's human rights against some of the most vulnerable youngsters in society and does not have a place in decent society.'

A ministry of Justice spokesman said the techniques were used 'very infrequently'.

She added: 'For young people under 18, the use of restraint is a last resort. But where young people's behaviour puts themselves or others at serious risk, staff need to be able to intervene effectively to protect the safety of all involved.'

18 July 2010
The Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295669/Child-prisons-Disturbing-secret-manual-reveals-brutal-methods-used-youth-offenders.html##ixzz0uJnFmzW1

The Fear Factory: New report highlights damage caused by the law and order ‘arms race’

2010-07-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Press Release: 15 July 2010

The Fear Factory Coalition enthusiastically welcomes the launch of the report, Time for a fresh start, by one of our members, the Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour. The report echoes the Fear Factory Coalition’s concerns over the damage done to children and young people and public safety by the law and order ‘arms race’.

The report was prompted by concern over consistent failings in the responses to crime and antisocial behaviour by children and young people. The commission notes: “concern over poor results is matched by dismay over the quality of past political debates about youth crime:

· For many years politicians appear to have been caught in a war of words on the basis that public opinion would favour whichever party sounded ‘tougher’.

· The facts were a notable casualty, to the point where three out of four people still believe that crime is going up, despite sound evidence that it has been falling for the past 16 years.*

· The consequences of this punitive ‘arms race’ have been expensive for taxpayers; but have not improved public confidence.”

The report also notes: “Given people’s retributive ‘top of the head’ response to youth crime when polled, it would be surprising if politicians did not, to some extent, take advantage of the public mood. Even so, the policy ‘arms race’ that has developed in the past 20 years has been exceptionally fierce. Commentators have drawn particular attention to the synergy between media-fuelled offenders and the rhetoric from political leaders of both left and right.”

The time has come for a fresh start and the report is a fantastic place to start in creating and implementing an effective, long term youth justice policy; a policy that is based on evidence rather than driven by short-term political gain, media sensationalism and ‘tough-talk’.

--ENDS--

Notes
* Walker, A., Flatley, J., Kershaw, C. and Moon, D. (2009) Crime in England and Wales 2008/09. London: Home Office.
· The report can be downloaded in full from: http://www.youthcrimecommission.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=85
· The Fear Factory Coalition has 59 members and 2 affiliates; for further information and a list of those involved contact Rachel Bird at rachel@spiritlevelfilm.com / 020 7569 3039; or visit www.thefearfactory.co.uk.
· The Fear Factory Coalition was inspired by the Fear Factory documentary; excerpts and trailers can be found online, or we can provide a full copy on request.
· We have a comprehensive list of high profile speakers who would be willing to provide and interview or comment.
· The Fear Factory film and Coalition have been generously funded by The Nationwide Foundation: www.nationwidefoundation.org.uk.

The Fear Factory: Jack Straw playing the law and order ‘arms race’

2010-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Press Release: 30 June 2010

The Fear Factory Coalition welcomes Ken Clarke’s proposals today made in a speech to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, echoing the views of The Fear Factory documentary which exposed ‘the tough talk fallacy that has led to the current crisis in the criminal justice system’ and revealed how crime and the fear of crime have been used by politicians contrary to the public interest for the last 30 years.

However, we are appalled by Jack Straw’s subsequent backlash in The Daily Mail which flies in the face of evidence. With a prison population of over 84,000 and a reoffending rate of 60% - rising to almost 95% for young males, his arguments that prison does work are nothing but fear mongering and an attempt to ratchet up the law and order ‘arms race’ for his own political ends.

The Fear Factory documentary includes contributions from Erwin James (ex-offender and Guardian columnist), Joyce Moseley (Director, Catch 22), Juliet Lyon (Director, Prison Reform Trust), David Howarth (ex Shadow Sec of State for Justice, Lib Dems), Dominic Grieve (ex Shadow Sec of State for Justice, Conservatives and now Attorney General), Maria Eagle (ex Minister for Justice, Labour), Chris Roycroft Davis (Ex Deputy Editor of the Sun), Paul Cavadino (ex Director of NACRO), Barry and Margaret Mizzen, Professor Rod Morgan (ex Head of the YJB) and Martin Narey (ex DG of the Prison Service and Director of Barnardo’s). The Fear Factory Coalition, inspired by the film has 57 member organisations. The consensus is clear: tough measures are not the same as effective measures, a point that Jack Straw deliberately seems to be missing.

--ENDS

Notes:
• For further information and a list of coalition members contact Rachel Bird at rachel@spiritlevelfilm.com / 020 7569 3039; or visit www.thefearfactory.co.uk.
• Excerpts and trailers can be found online, or we can provide a full copy on request.
• We have a comprehensive list of high profile speakers who would be willing to provide and interview or comment.
• Attached is a key list of quotes on the film, quotes from the film can be found online: www.thefearfactory.co.uk/about.php. Please feel free to use them but we politely ask you credit the film and where appropriate, link to this site.
• The Fear Factory film and Coalition have been generously funded by The Nationwide Foundation: www.nationwidefoundation.org.uk.

AOPM Annual Conference - Plenary

2010-06-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

Now entering the fourth year of operations, AOPM has become the driving force supporting volunteer Panel Members to achieve a sense of national identity and shared purpose.

We represent the community practitioners of a reintegrative approach to youth offending, on the basis that it is more likely to promote mutual respect, produce a meaningful dialogue and give young people a voice.

We continue to advocate restorative approaches to children in trouble with the law through panel meetings delivering support services and community sentences where, through willing participation, victims effectively become the jury and ensure that amends are made.

As representatives of civil society in the criminal justice system, we are keen to see greater integration of resources between the voluntary, third and statutory sectors towards a different direction for children caught up in criminality, but who are the most deprived and marginalised in our communities.

In Scotland’s Children’s Hearings system community volunteers meet with young people involved in crime - without the benefit of a prior criminal record – in order to nip offending behaviour in the bud. A criminal conviction is the major drawback of Referral Orders which, although spent on completion, is revealed through CRB checks to the detriment of future employment. (In the year to September 2009 over 125,000 CRB checks were made on under 18’s).

Moreover, a discretionary ‘Custody Threshold’ has meant that many young people, who pleaded guilty to a first time offence, were sent to jail instead of receiving a Referral Order. Although statistics of such sentences are not available from the YJB, a recent Barnardo’s report revealed that 95% of children incarcerated in 2006/07 had not committed a grave or serious offence, and 82% had not committed a violent offence against another person.

We therefore welcome the new measures from the Sentencing Guidelines Council that Referral Orders up to 12 months are mandatory for first time entrants pleading guilty to low level crimes, and that a court must state reasons why a community sanction is inappropriate when a custodial sentence is imposed. We also share the newly stated aim of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) to reduce criminalisation of young people, and continue to advocate that when issued alongside the Referral Order, Compensation Orders become spent on completion instead of after 30 months.

The Scottish tribunal model was adopted in Guernsey in 2009 and victims’ high involvement and satisfaction with the Northern Ireland system is in marked contrast with the present lack of involvement of victims in referral panels.

Despite the statutory basis of Panel Members’ role as practitioners of restorative justice, many of us long to see the day when the victims of young people’s crime routinely attend panel meetings, albeit inwardly apprehensive as to our ability to mediate effectively. Doubts arise from lack of RJ training and resources for volunteers, which AOPM has strived to redress since inception.

Following consultation on revised National Occupation Standards in RJ, Skills for Justice, the RJC and NPIA jointly launched the framework for a new qualification on 1st April 2010, open equally to employees and volunteers.
This represents immense progress and is a welcome commitment from government to the volunteer and third sector workforce (amounting to some 6million individuals), who service our most vulnerable young people. In addition, the YJB’s online college at the Open University is now accessible to volunteers, with easy access to learning materials for improving standards and consistency in youth offending panels.

In recent years, the increasing move away from local youth courts to a much more centralised system has meant that trial and sentencing of young people in courts can be outside their town, borough or county, whilst their schools, homes or care homes are no longer places of safety. At the same time the media-driven solution to youth crime is to remove young offenders out of sight and out of mind, leaving unaddressed their atrophied lives and collateral damage to victims and communities.

In marked contrast Panels lie at the heart of communities, enabling greater local accountability for those who commit crime in their youth, but statistically more often than not, will go on to live decent, law-abiding lives.

Neither a court of law nor a local authority committee, Panels provide local and accountable youth justice services to drive the changes so desperately needed by volatile young people, often struggling with literacy and communications deficits at a defining stage of their lives.

We look forward to a wider and increasingly effective role for Panel Members.

Sandra Beeton
http://www.aopm.co.uk
June 2010

Ken Clarke signals 'more sensible' prison sentencing policy

2010-06-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Prison reformers welcome justice secretary's claim that short prison sentences are ineffective in cutting reoffending rates

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 June 2010 11.59 BST

Ken Clarke questions why prison population is nearly double what it was when he was home secretary in the early 1990s. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Prison reformers today welcomed what appeared to be a major shift in the approach to penal policy outlined by the new justice secretary, Ken Clarke, over the weekend.

The lord chancellor questioned why the prison population – at 85,000 – was nearly double what it was when he was home secretary in the early 1990s.

Clarke confirmed that he is looking for cuts in the £2.2bn prison budget and seemed to indicate that he did not regard short prison sentences as effective in cutting reoffending rates.

He acknowledged that members of the public were still "very, very worried about lawlessness" but said that their "fear of crime" is probably out of proportion to what they actually face.

"It's not to be soft on sentencing, it's to be sensible on sentencing, and bear in mind everybody who is sent to prison costs more than it costs to send a boy to Eton. So, all right, I'm all in favour of spending it when it's effective and justified, and that we will do. And we're looking at sentencing, not starting just from let's have more people in prison, let's have fewer people in prison … but what actually works, because the public are still very, very worried about lawlessness," the justice secretary said in a Sky News interview yesterday.

"What I'm looking at is, in this case, sentencing. Our first duty is to protect the public – there are some very dangerous and nasty people that need to be in prison," said Clarke.

"But why is the prison population twice what it was when I was the home secretary not so very long ago?"

The Conservatives went into the election pledging to match Labour's plans to build sufficient prisons to house 96,000 by 2014. The Liberal Democrats had a pledge to halt the prison building programme and urge the courts to use community punishments instead of short prison sentences. The coalition agreement split the difference by agreeing to take a fundamental look at sentencing policy, which the justice secretary outlined yesterday.

Clarke confirmed that he had to look for cuts in the justice ministry budget but he was to keen to take a more fundamental look than simply "salami slicing" budgets and saving a "bit of money here, and a bit of money there".

The move was welcomed by prison reformers. Jon Collins of the Criminal Justice Alliance said his comments were a welcome step forward: "At long last a politician is facing up to the unsustainable cost of our prison system. We simply cannot afford to keep building endless new prisons as more and more people are sent to prison at huge cost to the taxpayer," said Collins.

"Since Ken Clarke was last in charge of the justice system, the prison population has nearly doubled, warehousing thousands of people who could be dealt with more cheaply and more effectively in the community. Ken Clarke is right, keeping more of these people out of custody would save money and free up space and resources in the prison system to better rehabilitate those people who do need to be there."

But Conservative rightwingers disagreed: "It's very sad that somebody of Ken Clarke's calibre is talking such drivel. This is a ridiculous false economy – it saves money to have the most persistent criminals in prison," said Conservative MP Philip Davies.

"If short sentences do not work, the argument should be for longer sentences, not putting them out on the streets to terrorise communities."

The prison population stood at fewer than 45,000 when Clarke was home secretary in 1992-3.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jun/14/ken-clarke-prison-sentencing

Former head of prisons: short sentences don't stop reoffending

2010-06-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

By Mark Hughes, Crime Correspondent

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

Prison has no effect in stopping thousands of criminals reoffending and politicians should look again at whether it is a suitable punishment for minor crimes, the outgoing head of the prison service has said.

Phil Wheatley, who until yesterday ran all 140 prisons in the UK, said that offenders who serve sentences of six months or fewer are not being rehabilitated and on usually go on to commit further offences.

In an interview with The Independent, Mr Wheatley also warned that, with the prison population continually rising against a backdrop of unprecedented public spending cuts, the Government will soon have to decide whether to build extra prisons or start releasing more prisoners early.

There are currently about 8,500 prisoners serving sentences of fewer than six months. Under current legislation they are eligible for release after half of their sentence and, because their sentence is less than a year, they are not given a probation officer.

Mr Wheatley, who leaves his post as director general of the National Offender Management Service (Noms), explained: "If you are using imprisonment to try to change the way someone thinks then you have got to allow time to allow someone to change.

"People who get short-term sentences – and many of them are doing relatively low-level crime like theft and shoplifting to fund a drug habit – often do not have much motivation to give it up. The real question is: are we making them better? Although we are doing our bit, we are not really making a significant difference to the way they reoffend.

"In real terms, if you get a short sentence you would serve half of it in prison. What can I do in, for example, two weeks with a person who is not very well-motivated to change?"

His argument is backed up by figures which show that prisoners released after less than 12 months go on to commit an average of three crimes each in their first year of freedom.

Instead, Mr Wheatley says that there is evidence to show that criminals given restorative justice penalties such as community service have lower reoffending rates than those given short-term jail sentences.

He added: "Anyone who says that short-term imprisonment does not work is perfectly accurate in saying that it does not have a therapeutic effect. Those who do community sentences do better than predicted. Short- term prisoners do worse than predicted. If you are looking for a therapeutic effect, there is not one for short-term imprisonment.

"My consolation is that we have achieved a therapeutic effect in longer-term prisoners and that is a major achievement."

Asked if the Government should scrap short-term sentences in favour of restorative justice penalties, he added: "In certain cases I can see what the thinking is behind it [short-term sentencing]. You could do away with it, but you would have to work out what was the right approach."

Mr Wheatley also warned that the current trend for judges to hand down indeterminate sentences – tariffs which in theory may never end – is stretching resources. He added: "It makes things more complicated because they will obviously only be released if we manage to reduce the risk of reoffending. If they do not prove that they are not a reoffending risk then their chances of getting out are zilch.

"It means that, of the resources we have available to reduce the reoffending risk, quite a lot of it goes on this group, a disproportionate amount. That's because, if we do not spend money on them, they will stay in prison forever – that is not humane to the individual and it is expensive to the taxpayer."

It does however mean that there is less money to spend on the rehabilitation of prisoners serving shorter sentences. Mr Wheatley said this was an unfortunate by-product: "We need to target the money to where it will make a difference. The danger is trying to spread it too thinly. If four people have an illness and 12 tablets will make one person better there is no point giving all four three each; that makes no one better."

Mr Wheatley joined the prison service in 1969, first as a prison officer, then a governor, and became director general of the service in 2003. His departure comes two years after the Prison Service merged with the National Probation Service and he became the first head of Noms.

He says that his decision to leave is due to the fact that, because in 2008 the job was put out to tender after two years, he was effectively being asked to re-apply for his own job, something he was not prepared to do at 62. He is replaced by Michael Spurr, previously the chief executive officer at Noms.

In Mr Wheatley's 41 years he has seen prison population rise from about 35,000 to 85,000 today. The increase, he says, is not down to crime rates, which are falling, but rather the tendency of judges to use prison sentences more frequently and hand down longer sentences.

He said: "At some point someone might decide they want to do something about that.

"It is not a problem for me, the jailer, because it gives me more customers and, just like the manager of Tesco, I do not mind having more customers. But we will need more prisons. If you do not do that you end up having to let people out early.

"The politicians have a choice: do they choose to build or do they choose to find a way of letting some prisoners out early? That is the political choice."

Case Study: 'Offenders don't need punishment: they need support'

Mark Johnson

"I remember the day I was released from my first prison sentence. I was 17 and had just served six months in Portland prison for assault. I was taken off the island on a minibus and put on the train back to Birmingham. I'd reoffended before I even got off the train.

"The first thing I did was buy four cans of Special Brew, take some amphetamine and smoke a spliff. While still on the train I robbed a young lad, took his money off him. The same night I went back to my mum's house and had stolen stuff from her house before I left the next morning.

"Within two months I was back inside after being caught selling cannabis. I did another four months and got out. A few weeks later I was in prison again for stealing a motorbike.

"I was a heroin and crack addict, but the prison service did nothing to rehabilitate me. It was a case of 'lock him up and he'll be gone in a few months'.

"But, in my opinion, I should have never gone to prison in the first place. All of my crimes were committed when I was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"I was a young lad in need of help, but I didn't realise it. The courts should have taken one look at me and proscribed some sort of alcohol or drug rehabilitation course. Instead they sent me to prison and somehow expected me to be a law-abiding citizen when I was released.

"The short spells in prison just taught me that I had to take from people or they would take from me. I continued that on the streets and my offending continued and my behaviour spiralled out of control.

"It wasn't until I enrolled myself on an intensive drug rehabilitation programme and realised that punishment was not what I needed – I needed help and support – before I finally realised what I was doing was wrong. But I had to do that myself. No one in the prison service appeared to recognise that."

The author is the founder of Uservoice, a charity involved in offender rehabilitation

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/former-head-of-prisons-short-sentences-dont-stop-reoffending-1995020.html

Prison numbers in England and Wales hits record high

2010-05-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

There are currently 85,076 inmates in England and

The prison population in England and Wales has reached a record high of 85,201, it has emerged.

Ministry of Justice figures show this figure was 192 more than last Friday.

Campaigners have called for Justice Secretary Ken Clarke to freeze the building of new prisons and stop the number of inmates rising further.

In February Jack Straw, the then justice secretary, announced the end of an early release scheme which saw more than 80,000 offenders let out.

No prisoners were eligible for the End of Custody Licence (ECL) scheme after 12 March and the last remaining ECL prisoners were out on 9 April.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8697456.stm

Coalition can break from failed justice policy

2010-05-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

Abandoning the obsessive concentration on increasing prison capacity will allow the government to restructure justice system

What strikes you most about the new justice policy outlined in the coalition programme for government is the absence of rhetoric. The new watchwords are moderation, common sense and effectiveness. As an example: everyone knows that drugs and drink fuel crime and antisocial behaviour – so let's deal with addictions and binge-drinking in a way that reduces harm and cuts costs. The coalition government appears to be taking the opportunity to break with the failed legacy of vacuous prison-building and instead concentrate on what works in justice policy.

When the new justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, was last in charge of prisons and penal policy, as home secretary, the average prison population in England and Wales (1992–1993) was 44,628. That figure now stands at over 85,000 – a number Clarke described after his appointment as "extraordinarily high". The political arms race over the criminal justice policy indulged in by successive Conservative and Labour administrations over the past two decades has seen the UK prison population grow from average to the highest in western Europe. As outlined in the Prison Reform Trust briefing launched this week, the social and economic costs of our addiction to custody have been immense.

In the current climate it would be a form of economic madness to allow the prison population to continue to spiral out of control. Each new prison place costs £170,000 to build and maintain, and the cost per prisoner per year is £45,000. Total prison expenditure increased from £2.843bn in 1995 to £4.325bn in 2006. Despite its exorbitant cost, prison has a poor record for reducing reoffending – 49% of adults are reconvicted within one year of being released, and for those serving sentences of less than 12 months this increases to 61%. The National Audit Office estimates that reoffending by all recent ex-prisoners costs the taxpayer between £9.5bn and £13bn a year.

The coalition can draw on lessons from abroad where justice reinvestment and prisoner re-entry programmes, driven by economic necessity in many states in America, have had considerable success at reducing crime and rates of reoffending. Closer to home, restorative justice with young people in Northern Ireland has delivered a reduction in youth crime, a drop in child custody and a 90% victim satisfaction rate. Integrated offender management schemes piloted in parts of England and Wales have achieved impressive results and are waiting to be rolled out nationally.

A breathing space from obsessive concentration on increasing prison capacity at all costs would give the government time to restructure the system so that local authorities, voluntary organisations, and police and probation services work more closely together to develop community solutions to crime that inspire public and judicial confidence.

A moratorium – a proposal welcomed by the Ministry of Justice as "timely and interesting" – would also allow time for the coalition partners to capitalise on the considerable areas of agreement between them on justice policy and, where there are differences, resolve them in a rational manner. In the Liberal Democrat and Conservative election manifestos there was broad consensus on investing in getting children out of trouble and nipping youth crime in the bud, diverting addicts and people who are mentally ill into effective treatment and, at the other end of the spectrum, informing and supporting victims, transforming prisoner rehabilitation and cutting reoffending on release.

The new justice policy fuses these plans and, although moderate in tone, could deliver the prize of increasing public safety while at the same time reducing the cost burden imposed by excessive use of custody.

A review of sentencing could be useful. The glut of legislation, raft of new offences and mandatory penalties and overall growth in the punishment industry all need unpicking. New ministers will need to examine the explosion in indeterminate sentencing – which has increased from 3,000 indeterminate sentences in 1992 to 12,822 in March 2010. The freedom bill will be an opportunity to review the civil-liberty crushing IPP sentence, which has led to thousands of people being held in jail long after their tariff has expired. It will be important, too, to look at the high number of recalls for breach of license and any unnecessary use of custodial remand.

As Alan Travis highlights in the Guardian, in the past the new justice secretary has been highly critical of the unchecked expansion of the prison population. In a debate on prison policy in the House of Commons in June 2007, Clarke called for "a change of culture in which the platitudes about community sentences and making prison only for those who need it are turned into reality by returning proper discretion to the courts and ensuring that prisons are used only for violent, dangerous and recidivist criminals in conditions in which there is some hope that some of them will be rehabilitated". As a moderate prescription for reforming our overcrowded and underperforming prison system the new coalition government could do a lot worse.

Juliet Lyons, Prison Reform Trust
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/21/coalition-can-break-from-failed-justice-policy

Penal reform a key policy flashpoint for Lib-Con coalition

2010-05-19T01:53:00.000-07:00

Mounting pressure from campaigners to halt the billion-pound prison-building programme promises to test new government

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 May 2010
Article history

Justice secretary Ken Clarke has been critical of the rise in prison numbers in recent years. Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images

Penal reformers are stepping up pressure on the Lib-Con coalition to halt the billion-pound prison-building programme, pointing out that in recent years the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, has repeatedly criticised the rise in prison numbers as unsustainable.

The future of the programme is a key policy flashpoint between the two coalition partners, and one of the main issues to be thrashed out before the detailed policy agreement between them is published in the next few weeks.

A Prison Reform Trust briefing published today says that when Clarke was last in charge of jails, as home secretary in 1993, the prison population stood at 44,628; it has now topped 85,000. Clarke told the Commons in June 2007 that over the previous 10 years four home secretaries had responded to media pressure on crime by "taking away discretion on sentencing from the courts" and almost doubling the prison population "without paying the slightest heed to the inevitable moment when they would hit the buffers and there was no accommodation". He said a change of culture was needed to ensure that discretion was given back to the courts to ensure that prison was used only for "violent, dangerous and recidivist criminals in conditions in which there was some hope that some of them will be rehabilitated".

The PRT also cites a Commons debate in March 2007 in which the now justice secretaryClarke warned that the '"fantastic rate" in the rise in the prison population was unsustainable and would lead to a "tremendous squeeze on spending in every other part of the criminal justice system". He also observed that the rapid rise in prison numbers was partly a result ofhome secretaries trying "desperately to get the right headlines in all the most popular rightwing newspapers".

The new coalition justice team, which includes Conservatives Nick Herbert and Crispin Blunt, is the ministerial team responsible for prisons and probation and inherits a prison-building programme that will increase the number of jail places from 85,000 now to 96,000 by 2014. The PRT says that this will give England and Wales an incarceration rate of 178 per 100,000 .

The penal reformers say there is broad agreement between the Lib Dem and Conservative manifestos in schemes to get children out of trouble, tackle youth crime early, divert addicts and mentally ill people away from the jail system and improve rehabilitation.

But there is a fundamental clash over sentencing and the prison building programme. David Cameron has called for longer sentences and wants to introduce automatic prison sentences for carrying a knife and to give magistrates the power to jail offenders for 12 instead of the current six months.

The Lib Dems, however, had promised to introduce a "presumption against short-term sentences of less than six months" and cancel the government's billion-pound prison building programme.

Juliet Lyon, the PRT's director, said: "As the new justice secretary has previously acknowledged, the current growth in prison numbers is unsustainable. A moratorium on prison building would be a first step in reversing the disastrous legacy of the past two decades which has seen the prison population almost double, while rates of reoffending have rocketed."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/19/coalition-government-prison-building-programme

The Fear Factory: Law and Order – When will the cracks start to show?

2010-05-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

Press Release: 12 May 2010
The Fear Factory: Law and Order – When will the cracks start to show?

As the dust begins to settle on a strange new political landscape, the release of the initial coalition agreement between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives makes no mention of the clear differences in law and order policy between the two parties. The former were clear in their manifesto:
· a presumption against short sentences of less than six months;
· the cancellation of the prison building programme;
· a more effective justice policy.

Two out of three of these policies run totally counter to the Conservatives policy and the Fear Factory Coalition calls on the government to clearly outline their plans for law and order. As Kenneth Clarke assumes the mantel of Minister for Justice we ask that he works with the Liberal Democrats for an effective long-term criminal justice policy. We also call on the Liberal Democrats to have the courage of their convictions and to stand fast to their election promises.

In the election debate Nick Clegg echoed his response to The Fear Factory film which inspired the Coalition:
“I hope the Fear Factory exposes the tough talk fallacy that has led to the current crisis in the criminal justice system. Dragging young people through the criminal justice system for minor offences is a foolproof way of helping them to graduate to a more serious life of crime.”

Chris Huhne, then Home Affairs Spokesperson, was categorical in his agreement with The Fear Factory which he said: “Exposes our criminal justice crises with precision.” He promised that: “The Liberal Democrats will not peddle the politics of fear ... We will put criminal justice on an evidence-based footing by establishing a National Crime Reduction Agency to test properly what cuts crime.”

Dominic Grieve speaking in the film as Shadow Justice Secretary was equally clear in the lead up to the election that:
“What I do want to do is to try and do some hard thinking about what works. To put in place systems which I hope will reduce crime in both short, medium and long term and implement them along the lines of what we've been discussing and I want to do that whilst at the time saying to the public that there are no quick fixes and any politician that goes out there and promises a quick fix is in fact deceiving people.”

Despite the embarrassing wrangling over the crime stats which led to a warning from Sir Michael Scholar, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, that the Conservatives were ‘likely to mislead the public’, for once this was an election where there wasn’t too much ‘out toughing’ on crime.

With the media already putting pressure on the coalition government to make crime an issue it remains unclear as to whether ‘the fear factory’ will continue to rumble on unabated or finally be deemed ineffective, but whatever the outcome the growing Fear Factory Coalition - currently 55 members strong - will continue to campaign for an effective long-term criminal justice policy.

--ENDS--

Film exposes horrors of 'fear factory'

2010-05-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

The Fear Factory has been screened at the MOJ, home office, DCSF, the Welsh assembly, and has been praised by politicians who have seen it. ePolitix.com speaks to the film-makers, Richard Symons and Joanna Natasegara.

For people who have never seen The Fear Factory, can you briefly explain the idea behind it?

Essentially, the film explains why our criminal justice system is in crisis and attempts to correct the numerous misconceptions held by politicians, media and public. There has been a raft of reports and recommendations over the last few years, but no-one's ever taken a holistic view of the issues – in particular, the media's influence on policy-making – and perhaps the very heart of the matter, what do we actually want from our criminal justice system? It is interesting to see that the most recent report from the justice select committee came to exactly the same conclusion as the film on the key indicator of performance – re-offending rates. And at the moment, we are performing pretty badly.

Spirit Level makes a wide variety of films, why did you decide to investigate the nature of the criminal justice system?

The problem with criminal justice issues is they are either very dry (and often contested) statistical data, or highly emotive individual cases. Neither of these are particularly useful for delivering compelling arguments to influence policy or educate people.

We were approached by a group of stakeholders who had seen our previous political documentary, The Ministry of Truth, and felt we had brought a very dry constitutional issue (Parliament's self-regulation) to life by trying to get MPs and ministers to support a bill making them legally accountable for deliberately misleading the public. It ended up being the BBC's highest-rated political documentary of that year. The stakeholders could certainly have gone a more traditional route and commissioned a report, but felt a film would give them a more usable tool – one they could show to policymakers as well as other stakeholders and perhaps most importantly, the public.

Ultimately I think we were drawn to the idea because it deals with issues as fundamental (and emotionally charged) as redemption and retribution. Do we want offenders to be rehabilitated and redeemed, or would we prefer to pay the price for their continued re-offending and incarceration? The focus on youth justice made the subject even more compelling – if you are an innocent at birth, where is the cut-off point? When can society say we no longer have a responsibility to set you on the straight and narrow? 16, 18, 35? Can you ever turn your back? That is as much of a moral as an economic question, and makes powerful viewing.

There is often a lot of hypocrisy in the media when dealing with children as victims and offenders – the two are not mutually exclusive groups; more often than not they are actually closely linked. A child who has had a rough ride in some way and is a victim is more likely to be the offender of the future, yet the media loves to talk in absolutes – angels or demons.

You must have experienced mixed reactions to the film, but are most people surprised to hear that crime has actually fallen since 1997?

Absolutely. I do not think we have ever made a film where the public had such strong but misinformed opinions. Having said that, we also found the main problem with public opinion was that no-one had ever talked the issues through. Start a conversation with, "What should the sentence be for murder?" and inevitably the response is, "Life. And 'life' should mean exactly that." It is only once you get a little further into it – the costs, rehabilitation etc. that people start to think it through and put the initial, emotional response to one side. We deliberately provoked an emotional response (and engagement) to begin with by introducing the viewer to some violent offenders, where your initial reaction is to hope they are not on the streets. Then we unpack the arguments and history. By the end of it you have met all the relevant players (victims, media, politicians, government, judges, NGOs), fully considered the issue and – hopefully – changed your mind.

The public response on crime is quite like the public response to politicians – they can think their local area and local MP is okay, but that the rest of the country has gone to the dogs. It is an odd psychological paradox.

The shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Grieve, appeared in the film claiming that crime has definitely increased since 1997, which was proven to be factually wrong. Has he tried to retract this statement at any point?

I am afraid not. Perhaps worse than that, we held the launch screening at the Empire, Leicester Square, with a Q&A session afterwards. The Conservatives pulled Dominic from the panel and were not able to offer a replacement – it looked pretty bad in front of 500 or so press, stakeholders, civil servants and government officials.

The Conservatives have been consistent in their repetition of this fact, despite warnings from Michael Scholar [chairman of the UK Statistics Authority]. Their persistence with it indicates they have a particular agenda they are trying to put across to the public, and that to me is fear-mongering; using people's imaginations to frighten them into voting a certain way. It is not very helpful and it is a shame, because lots of the work done by Dominic Grieve and Iain Duncan Smith on youth justice has been quite positive.

In the film, Cherie Blair, chair of the English Commission on Prisons, says that prisons have a success rate of around 30 per cent (or a re-offending rate of 70 per cent). When setting out to make the film, did you think that it was this low?

Frankly, before we made the film I had never even thought about re-offending rates, but very early on in the research, it became clear this was the key. I do not think I was surprised by how bad it was, I was more surprised that no-one had got a handle on this earlier. Here the media are as much to blame as politicians – had the press been attacking policy failures on re-offending rates, there is no question in my mind the parties and politicians would have responded. Instead we are stuck with a slanging match between 'soft' or 'tough' on crime – the word 'effective' is not in the vocabulary.

I was surprised at the highest rate of reoffending for young men (90 per cent), because I could not understand why such a clear failure of purpose was not a national outrage, and why, if we know the system is so ineffective, we're committing millions of pounds to expanding it. The simple truth is we cannot afford to build more prisons or have more people become offenders or re-offenders. It costs a lot of money to fail this badly! But the papers clearly did not feel reoffending rates was a story, nor would many of them tolerate, be sympathetic, to spending money on more effective alternatives to custody.

Chris Roycroft-Davis, former executive editor of The Sun newspaper, says in the film he does not think newspapers have a duty to "educate, or inform". Were you at all shocked by this?

Not at all – though this was almost certainly the biggest bone of contention at Spirit Level. There was a natural instinct to crucify Chris, but I was impressed by his honesty, and thought we would be kidding ourselves if we believed such a duty existed. Honesty will become a 'duty' only if the public stops buying a newspaper when it lies.

All credit to Chris though – he was prepared to defend himself at the Q&A session and was quite frank about the film changing his mind. Does that redeem a man who has been responsible for 20 years of headlines read by 10 million people a day? Things get harder to justify when you look at the principles/ethics of journalism laid out by the NUJ code for its members. I suspect if they ever tried to enforce them, there would be a significantly reduced membership.

Initially I was both shocked and angered by Chris' statement – I had always believed (perhaps naively) that papers did profess to educate and lead. I felt, and to some extent still do think, that the newspapers' consumers are not thinking about the shareholders' bottom line when they read the stories. Nor do I think this statement fits well with a paper that is actively trying to have an effect on policy, and often succeeding. I actually think The Sun's campaigns on the Bulger case led the Labour Party, and was partially responsible for the rise in young people in custody since 1998. However, like Richard, I did enjoy Chris' honesty and openness. He has subsequently been a great asset and supporter of the project overall.

Did you find when making the film that politicians privately believe there is another option other than imprisoning the young, but publicly, crime-fighting rhetoric is what scores the most political points?

In terms of youth justice, you are absolutely right. But rhetoric is one thing, and delivery another. Talk is cheap, legislation a little more expensive – but not that much more. The real deal is implementation, and that is where I suspect the differences kick in. Whether it is through a lack of interest, ability or funding, we will probably never know, but this government has been better at delivering its promises on building prisons than it has at delivering effective alternative options. In the film, even John Fassenfelt – deputy chair of the Magistrates' Association – was pretty damning of what has been delivered. When you ask the NGOs and offenders their opinion, the criticism was at another level altogether.

We have always thought the public prefer politicians to tell more of the straight truth and explain the complicated bits. Very few other countries have such a problem with explaining sensible youth justice policies to the electorate, so I am convinced this is not an intractable problem. However, we could solve it much faster if the parties agreed not to point-score off each other on crime, not to use fear as an election tool or bandwagon on essentially anomalous, high-profile cases which are not indicative of a general pattern.

Do you think the backlash from the media is the only thing stopping politicians from a different approach to criminal justice, and youth justice in particular?

As we point out in the film, the media are not elected to run the country. I think the real hindrance to reform is the politician's inability to lead on the issue. That has lost them the respect of a great many stakeholders they need to work with. Off the back of the film, a coalition of unprecedented expertise and experience was formed (some 47 NGOs) to lobby politicians for effective, as opposed to 'media-friendly' policies. If a dyed–in-the-wool newspaper man like Chris Roycroft-Davis had his opinion changed by the film, it seems beyond credibility that our elected representatives and government could not do the same thing over the last decade. I see that as a failing on their part and in particular, a failing in their capacity as representatives of the peoples' interests.

I think politicians have got themselves stuck between each other and the media. Even if the press did not respond to an effective policy statement with a 'soft' headline, the opposing party might well do. This 'arms race' has got to stop before sensible, productive debate and outcomes can happen – though I note the Liberal Democrat manifesto promises on law and order are very similar to the conclusions of the film. Maybe it has been easier for them to be sensible on policy because they were not being so closely watched?

The film has already had an incredible impact, but do you think the best way of instigating change is for it to be aired on television?

Not necessarily. We have had a tremendous amount of both 'official' and 'unofficial' screenings for government, the Home Office, MOJ, DCSF, NGOs and, earlier this week, the Welsh Assembly. That is a lot of policymakers. As a film-maker you always want your film to be seen by as large an audience as possible, but this was made with a very specific purpose in mind – to influence policy-change. As such, it was essential to make a balanced but compelling argument on a difficult, emotive subject with a counter-intuitive conclusion. If this film had been through the broadcast commissioning process, it would have become something very different. Broadcasters do not have the same stranglehold on reaching the public as they used to – the internet has changed the ground rules. That said, I have no doubt at some point we will make an edit for a broadcaster.

A coalition has been formed on the back of the film; what stage is this at and what are you hoping to achieve from it?

The Nationwide Foundation went 'above and beyond' in supporting the resultant coalition, and we are delighted they have decided to continue funding its work for this year. There is a co-ordinator in place who will continue to work with coalition members on the goals they have set out.

One of the ideas is to pool the coalition's expertise and use it to rebuff misleading media, statistics and politicians, by reproducing an article or policy statement online and having a group of experts post comments on it. You will effectively have an evidence-based response from credible individuals that can be used as a resource by media, politicians, stakeholders etc. to put forward an expert opinion.

http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/justice-incarceration-or-rehabilitation/

Labour's 'votes for paedophiles' leaflet sparks row

2010-04-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

A Labour candidate is embroiled in a row with the Liberal Democrats after suggesting they would give convicted murderers and paedophiles the vote.

Roger Godsiff, who is standing in Birmingham Hall Green, issued leaflets showing nursery worker Vanessa George, who was jailed for abusing children.

He defended the move, saying his opponents were evading scrutiny, but Labour have now scrapped the leaflet.

The Lib Dems said they would not give those currently in prison the vote.

However, they stressed the issue needed to be looked at following a 2005 ruling by the European Court of Rights that found the UK's ban on extending the vote to convicted prisoners was unlawful

Ministers have been consulting on how to respond to the ruling since then with critics accusing them of kicking the issue into the long grass.

High-profile cases

Leaflets distributed under Mr Godsiff's name asked: "Do you want convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles to be given the vote? The Lib Dems do".

The leaflets contained pictures of a number of high-profile criminals including Vanessa George and Steven Wright, convicted in 2008 for the murder of five women in the Ipswich area.

“ As soon as it came to my attention I immediately ensured that no more of these would be distributed ”
Ray Collins, general secretary of the Labour Party

Mr Godsiff defended the campaign tactic, saying the Lib Dems' policy on the issue was "black and white" but they were not making that clear to voters.

"I agree that the imagery is strong but I do not accept that it is any stronger than anything that has been put out by my opponents," Mr Godsiff told the BBC.

"The leaflet has been distributed in certain areas but it does not contain anything that is factually incorrect. I have put out some negative campaigning when my opponents do not tell the electorate what their position is.

"It is right and proper to ask whether they support or do not support whether people convicted of serious crimes can vote. I have invited other candidates to make their position clear....I have made my position clear."

'Legal minefield'

Asked whether he had personally sanctioned the leaflets, he said he would not discuss the "mechanics" of his campaign but accused the Lib Dems of lying about his policies and voting record.

However, Labour have acted to defuse the row, saying the leaflet was not approved at a national level.

"This was a locally produced leaflet," Ray Collins, the party's general secretary, said. "As soon as it came to my attention I immediately ensured that no more of these would be distributed."

The Lib Dems said they were "unhappy" with the claims and did not favour any attempt to give already convicted prisoners the vote, describing such a step as a "legal minefield".

But, in future, they said judges should be given discretion to decide, upon sentencing, whether to strip someone of the vote, depending on the length of sentence and the nature of the crime.

Once a new system was in place, they said existing prisoners should be given the right to launch an appeal to try and secure the vote.

However, they insisted that those guilty of the most serious crime should never be able to do this.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8630001.stm
Published: 2010/04/19

ASBO ‘BREACH’ CHILDREN SET UP TO FAIL

2010-04-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

Agencies dealing with children and young people in breach of bail conditions, criminal justice orders (CJOs) and anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) need to strike a balance between enforcement and support to improve outcomes for young offenders and reduce re-offending, according to a new NCB report ‘Children and young people in ‘breach’: A scoping report on policy and practice in the enforcement of criminal justice and anti-social behaviour orders’.

The report contains the initial findings from a project to increase understanding of policy and practice in breach proceedings, particularly focusing on children and young people who are in custody as a result of breach. Recent years have seen an increasing number of young people incarcerated for breach, including cases whereby no criminal offence was committed in the first instance.

It questions whether intervention by anti-social behaviour units is too adult focused so that the conditions attached to ASBOs are unachievable for many young people. In contrast, recent youth justice appears to be trying to move towards a more flexible and child centred approach. The report suggests that communication may be weak between different agencies, young people and their legal representatives, with young people not always understanding the conditions of their order or the consequences of non-compliance.

Di Hart, author of the report and Principal Officer of Youth Justice and Welfare at NCB says, ‘We must remember that young offenders are children first and offenders second. This is not to suggest that young offenders shouldn’t be held to account for their actions, but that the practitioners that work with them should accept responsibility for ensuring their conditions are reasonable and that they understand them in full. Communication, intensive intervention and tailored support are key ingredients in assisting children and young people who are often from difficult and chaotic homes to complete their orders rather than relying on a punitive approach alone.’

www.ncb.org.uk

The Fear Factory – the work continues

2010-04-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

All may have gone quiet on the blog but we’ve been very busy behind the scenes. On the strength of the film, almost 50 national organisations joining the coalition, fantastic press and unprecedented support from key stakeholders, the Nationwide Foundation have very kindly agreed to fund the future work of The Fear Factory as we campaign for:

A cross-party commitment to creating and implementing an effective, long term Criminal Justice strategy based on evidence.

An "Amnesty" on the "arms race" - ending policies driven by short-term political gain, media sensationalism and "tough-talk".

Britain has one of the highest incarceration rates in Western Europe and though supposedly only used as a last resort and to house those most dangerous offenders, the UK incarcerates more children than most other western countries – currently over 2,500 children are in jail.

As the media decries the youth of today and the spectre of ‘broken Britain’ raises it’s ugly head, politicians knee-jerk to each story of violent youth, conveniently ignoring that at the heart of the issue are some of the most vulnerable children and young people who have been failed by social services and failed by us.

Conditions in custody are regularly criticised by independent inspectors, including the over-use of physical force and deliberate infliction of pain, strip-searching and segregation. The majority of young people are criminalised for minor and petty offences, but set on the trajectory to crime by the system itself. Growing up under these conditions it is no surprise that the re-offending rate is well over 75%. The system isn’t working, and at £170,000 for each new prison place it is a very expensive way of ensuring our young people become more damaged thereby opening society up to a very real risk of crime.

30% of children in custody have been in care, three quarters of the prison population suffer from at least two diagnosable mental health disorders and learning disabilities and difficulties are rife. In 1910 the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill said that the civilisation of a society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners. When those prisoners are our children and prison takes the place of a failing social services, it is imperative that society takes a serious look at the legacy we are building before it’s too late and Britain ‘grows’ the largest adult prison population in Europe.

If you haven’t seen the film yet, the DVD is available for purchase at: http://www.spiritlevelfilm.com/the-fear-factory.html/

We also have a public screening at The Frontline Club on 22nd April at the Frontline Club: http://frontlineclub.com/events/2010/04/uk-premiere-screening---fear-factor.html.

Two screenings as part of the London Independent Film festival on the 18th and 19th April, tickets available here: http://www.londonindependent.org/tickets.htm.

I’ll bring you more news soon but in the meantime, check out the New Statesman for news on The Tories’ shocking new crime leaflet - evidence of business as usual for the Fear Factory:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/04/crime-leaflet-tories.

Solving the prisoner’s dilemma

2010-03-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

With the glimmering colourful lights and the smell of popcorn, the Empire at Leicester square seems an unlikely place for serious discussion on public policy. Yet it may be the starting point for an important movement to change public perceptions and the politics of youth justice.

Yesterday about 400 people were gathered at the Empire for the first screening of the documentary The Fear Factory. The film powerfully described how the fear of crime is maintained by sensationalist media coverage and the cynical tactics of political parties. This has lead to harsher and more punitive responses to youth crime, which in many cases do little more than entrench the criminal behaviour. The documentary, produced by Spirit Level Films, is connected with a campaign for a criminal justice policy that is more humane and long-term in its perspective – and ultimately better at delivering safety for our neighbourhoods. nef’s latest report Punishing Costs was launched in connection with the screening.

With interviews from key experts and practitioners, the documentary shows how the public’s beliefs about the risk of becoming a victim and the general trends in the amount of crime were far from reality and all evidence. Britain has become a safer place in the past two decades – yet the fear of crime remains stubbornly high.

Unfortunately, it is perceptions that drive politics. One of the safest political strategies in the recent past has been to promise to crack down misbehaving youth and to hit them where it hurts. The Fear Factory documents how any deviation from this pattern is quickly struck down, as happened to Cameron when he suggested understanding the social causes of crime. The film also points an accusing finger at the media that gives disproportionate attention to violent cases and misrepresents sentencing as more lenient than it is in truth.

This reaction may actually create the monster that it so much fears. In the climate of alarm about youth crime, the imprisonment of children and young people has remained on very high levels. Prison as an intervention is incapable of dealing with the real causes of crime, and does little more than temporarily isolates an individual from contact with society. About three in four young people released from prison return to crime within a single year.

At the same time custody uses up massive amounts of resources that could have truly improved the safety on our streets. Our report Punishing Costs shows how the full cost of a year-long sentence in prison is £140,000. It is worth pausing to think about what could be achieved if these resources would be put to a positive use.

The screening was followed by an excellent panel that included some prominent criminologists and politicians – and an ex-editor of a tabloid who astonishingly displayed no sense of regret for his past role. Most of the panellist agreed that current policy was too much determined by knee-jerk reactions to high-visibility criminal cases in the media and an arms race between the parties to appear to be the true guardians of law and order.

One of the solutions they proposed by the speakers was to create a cross-party committee for a longer-term vision of developing criminal justice policy that all parties would sign up to. This would curtail the harmful competition between parties, which has led to the current punitive arrangements that hardly anyone believes to be productive or humane. Such a committee, together with a better debate and engagement with the public, is part of the recommendations of Punishing Costs.

Documentaries are powerful tools in transmitting knowledge and awareness of issues. At a time when the media is transmitting a largely false picture and political parties are failing to take the leadership to change perceptions, a film may be exactly the tool that is needed. I hope the Fear Factory, and the coalition forming to campaign around it, receive the attention they deserve.

Aleksi Knuutila
Researcher in the Valuing What Matters programme at nef
Original article: http://neftriplecrunch.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/2088/
nef

The Fear Factory

2010-03-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

The “Fear Factory” is a new film about the criminal justice system. Watch the trailer or find out more here.

On releasing “The Fear Factory” at a closed screening in Central London last week, the Bulger case was history – the hair-trigger cause of the youth justice crisis which the film shows unfolding over the past two decades. This weeks events have shown it’s more real, more relevant than ever – and more worryingly, that we’ve learnt little from the past.

Despite knowing full well that a punitive climate, stoked by a distorted fear of crime has lead to a doubling of our prison population and rates of re-offending as high as 90%, our educated friends in Westminster have done nothing to change this. So why not? Could it be because fear actually helps them… ?

In the 1990’s law and order burst onto the political agenda as way to grab votes and Michael Howard, home secretary when Bulger’s killers were sentenced, led the way – bending to public and tabloid pressure and extending the killers sentences. A canny Blair, realised that crime, and especially youth crime was a big winner with the red tops and if he was going to win the election he needed them on-side.

The Sun’s then Executive Editor told us in a cringe-worthy moment for anyone who bought Blair’s hype at the time:

He ran, “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” past me and asked “do you think the press will go for this one?

They did; In a big way, and NuLabour™, took Howard’s precedent to the max. For example our exec editor at the Sun wrote a leader saying yobs should be frogmarched to cashpoint machines and within a week it was Labour policy. Some 4,300 new criminal offences have been introduced in the last decade and today we’re paying the price. It costs up to £250,000 to keep a young offender in custody and as few as 10% stay on the straight and narrow when they get out.

Meanwhile, some states in the US are investing heavily in programmes that have now been proven successful at re-habilitating young offenders and scrapped plans to build new prisons. This should make us pause for thought but the re-emergence of Bulger and resultant coverage ahead of a general election doesn’t bode well – both Tories and Labour have pledged to build more prisons and the Ministry of Justice has just signed off on a private sector contract to build and run the first Titan-style prison for young offenders.

Alongside Ministers and MPs in the film we also interviewed victims, young offenders and killers. None of them pulled any punches (probably why broadcasters won’t touch anything but a hacked down version). Off the back of the film, 47 national organisation joined a coalition asking for an end to this ‘arms race on political tough talk’; The Liberal Democrats have pledged not to use fear as an electioneering tool – in stark contrast to the Conservatives and Labour. Maria Eagle MP (Ministry of Justice) refused to make the same pledge at our screening, with Labour’s new advert on crime out – it’s not hard to see why. At least she had the courage to come to the screening, unlike Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary, Dominic Grieve MP, who was conveniently called away at the last minute on a three line whip and unable to defend himself on what many will see as a direct endorsement of Chris Grayling’s “misleading” statements on crime figures.

by Joanna Natasegara and Richard Symons
March 12, 2010 at 8:00 am
Liberal Conspiracy

Do go and comment on their blog:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/03/12/the-fear-factory/

Tough on crime? Jail's not the answer

2010-03-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

Locking up more people is a populist ploy that doesn't cut crime. We would focus on rigorous community sentences instead

You wouldn't run the NHS without testing the effectiveness of drugs. No sane economist would let you run the economy without elaborate modelling to test fiscal and monetary policies. It should be a given that important matters of public policy are based on evidence and research, rather than political whim. Why, then, is the field of criminal justice uniquely and scandalously divorced from this obvious rule?

In no other area of public policy are politicians as ready and willing to play to the public gallery as on crime. Since Tony Blair became shadow home secretary in 1992, Labour's approach to law and order has been to try to out-Tory the Tories in being seen as tough on crime. The Tories were only too willing to prey on people's fear of crime and enter into a sentencing arms race conducted in the pages of tabloid newspapers. Both sides continue to try to frighten the public into the arms of their party. It is this politics of fear that has created the dismal bidding war between politicians and the press on crime, a loss of faith in the police and judiciary, and the systematic demonisation of young people.

Rabid rhetoric has helped to criminalise a generation of young people. Britain is the sick man of Europe in terms of youth justice. We have the lowest age of criminal responsibility and highest rate of youth imprisonment. In Labour's first decade in power, a million children were convicted of a criminal offence and another million were cautioned. After the ridiculous top-down targets of 2002 (where fining a child for littering or cannabis was given the same points value as solving a murder), the police found children were easy pickings. As a result, the number of children entering the criminal justice system rose two and a half times faster than adults.

We now spend 11 times more on locking children up than on projects to stop them sliding into crime in the first place. Yet incarceration just increases the likelihood of turning them into serious adult offenders. There are more people in the colleges of crime we call our prisons than ever before. More places are being built. Sentences are getting longer. But it is not working. Reoffending remains sky-high. Nine out of every 10 young men sentenced to a first short custodial sentence get out of prison and commit more crime. Yet the politics of fear dictates that both the Tories and Labour are pledging to send more people to prison for longer just because it sounds tough. Liberal Democrats would not build more prisons. We are the only party brave enough to suggest that rigorous community sentences are more effective than short prison sentences.

The debate about crime in this country desperately needs to be raised above the populist pandering of what sounds "tough". It needs to be about what actually works to cut crime. Labour and the Tories would like you to think that locking people up has led to less crime. The evidence suggests otherwise. We have the second highest crime rate in Europe (after Sweden) and yet the highest rate of incarceration (except for Luxembourg). Other countries, such as Denmark, have managed to take advantage of falling crime rates to reduce their prison populations. Yet Labour and the Tories remain wedded to multi-billion pound plans to lock more people up.

The Liberal Democrats will not peddle the politics of fear. This is the promise we will make to voters in the run up to the election. This is the promise my colleague David Howarth made this week at the screening of the new film the Fear Factory (see you see a trailer here), which exposes our criminal justice crisis with forensic precision. It is a promise Maria Eagle refused to make because she knew Labour colleagues could not and would not keep it. The Conservative party was so scared of the question that Dominic Grieve dodged it by refusing to turn up. They both remain as committed to the law and order arms race as ever.

Instead of posturing on penalties, the Liberal Democrats will focus on proven methods of catching criminals and cutting crime. We will put criminal justice on an evidence-based footing by establishing a National Crime Reduction Agency to test properly what cuts crime. It will do for policing and criminal justice policy what the National Institute for Clinical Excellence does for the health service. We need all the evidence we can get if we are to get other politicians and the media to concentrate on what works rather than what scares.

Chris Huhne
guardian.co.uk
Sunday 7 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/07/liberal-democrats-criminal-justice

Deaths of children and young people in penal custody

2010-03-05T05:48:00.000-08:00

INQUEST has been working to identify trends and issues emerging from the issue of deaths of children and young people in custody since 1990. We have also been concerned with the effectiveness of the state’s investigative processes for identifying and rectifying dangerous practices and procedures in order to ensure that lessons are learned and further fatalities prevented. We have worked on many child death cases, produced numerous documents on the issue and published a detailed analysis in the book In the Care of the State? Child deaths in Penal Custody in England and Wales by Barry Goldson and Deborah Coles (INQUEST 2005). It concluded that children should not be imprisoned save for in child-centred Local Authority Secure Children’s Homes.

Since January 2000 126 young people aged 18-21 and children aged 14-17 have died whilst in state custody in prisons, immigration detention centres and secure training centres. 113 of those young people took their own lives, and two died as the result of homicides by other prisoners. This figure includes 12 self-inflicted deaths of children in custody.

Our monitoring of the investigation and inquest process following the deaths of children and young people has revealed consistent and repeated features, illustrating that systemic failings are not being addressed but continue to be reproduced by the practices and processes of child imprisonment. The starting point is the very high levels of children being sentenced or remanded to custody (often at great distances from home) with no consideration by the court as to where the child will be detained. This is resulting in children who are often extremely vulnerable being sent to institutions which do not have the resources, facilities or trained staff to deal with their needs.

Increasing numbers of children and demonstrably vulnerable young people are being detained in manifestly unsafe environments and being subjected to bullying, degrading treatment such as strip-searching, segregation and restraint. This amounts to a failure by the state to fulfil its duty of care towards children in its custody and additionally is a significant and substantial breach of the UK’s international treaty obligations. However, the violation of the rights of this large body of children goes worryingly beyond inhumane and humiliating treatment. It has been proven forensically that it presents a persistent risk of injury, suffering or death to young people detained in child prisons.

The campaign for a public inquiry into the death of 16 year old Joseph Scholes in HMYOI Stoke Heath in 2002 received strong parliamentary support and galvanised both the public and NGOs. Our work on this campaign drew national and international attention to the high number of children and young people dying in the hands of the state. INQUEST also has particular concerns about the high levels of restraint used on children in custody. We produced case briefings on the restraint-related deaths in 2004 of 14 year old Adam Rickwood, who took his own life in Hassockfield Secure Training Centre shortly after being restrained by staff, and of 15 year old Gareth Myatt who was killed in Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre after being asphyxiated by three custody officers who restrained him after an incident following his refusal to clean a toaster. Our work with the families and their legal team was critical in exposing the dangerous and unlawful use of restraint. In 2007, we also campaigned successfully with the NSPCC and the Child Rights Alliance for England to end the use of pain compliance restraint techniques against children in custody.

Most recently an inquest concluded into the death of 15 year old Liam McManus who was found hanging in his cell in Lancaster Farms Young Offender Institution in 2007, the thirtieth child to die in state custody since 1990. The jury returned a six-page narrative verdict which criticised the YOI, social services and the Youth Justice Board's systemic failings of a seriously damaged young boy. It is deeply shocking that such failings across several agencies responsible for Liam's care were highlighted once again, despite all the previous inquests into deaths of children.

What the inquests held into the deaths of children and young people have uncovered is that the juvenile justice system needs urgent and profound public scrutiny, investigation and review, significantly wider in scope than the inquest process permits. It is essential for there to be a properly-resourced, transparent and critical analysis of the defects of the custodial treatment of children and young people in the form of a public inquiry in order to ensure that the deaths of the children of the families who we support are not to be entirely in vain.

Deborah Coles,
Co-Director
INQUEST

Tainted by the James Bulger legacy

2010-03-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

Why does the horrific murder of a Merseyside toddler by two young boys in 1993 still have such a lasting effect on the way we demonise and stereotype disturbed children?

Nasty little juveniles. Hooligans. Freaks. Bastards. Worthless. Evil. Those are just a few of the words used by our politicians and media to describe some of the country's children. It could be now, but this was in 1993, the year that two-year-old James Bulger was murdered on Merseyside by two 10-year-old boys.

I grew up with what headlines described as "hooligans on holiday". In 1985, my parents set up Bryn Melyn, a home in north Wales to look after some of the most disturbed teenagers in the country. They included children who'd slice themselves open to push paper clips underneath their own skin; a girl who inserted shards of a smashed lightbulb inside her vagina; a boy whose guardians – his grandparents – would hold his hands in the fire to punish him; and a pubescent girl whose parents would drag her out of bed when they got back from the pub so their friends could have sex with her.

The "holiday" bit referred to the intensive one-to-one trips abroad my dad designed to kick-start their rehabilitation. These trips were incredibly successful. Before we sent the first boy away, he had regularly assaulted the staff and other teenagers. After returning from a three-month trip to France, he went to work with Alzheimer's patients. A short spell in prison – this boy's only other option – has a failure rate for young men of about 90%.

As part of my research for a book I am writing about Bryn Melyn, I've studied the newspaper coverage of 1993 to trace the path between the horrific Bulger murder and the way we view young people today.

When the death of James hit the papers, the Daily Star offered a £20,000 reward "to trap beasts who killed little James". The Guardian reported a "lynch mob" outside the home of a wrongly arrested 12-year-old suspect. In the Sun, Richard Littlejohn screeched: "This is no time for calm. It is a time for rage, for blood-boiling anger, for furious venting of spleen." Headlines such as "Evil that makes a child kill", "Locked up in luxury", "Riot mob fears at Jamie court" dominated the newspapers.

It was also the perfect opportunity for the Tories to reassert themselves as the party of law and order. Three days after James's body was found, the then prime minister, John Major, gave an interview to the Mail on Sunday, highlighting his tough stance on crime. He said: "Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less." Five days later, his home secretary, Kenneth Clarke, announced plans to incarcerate children as young as 12. When it came to the two boys charged with the Bulger murder, the policeman in charge of the case, Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, asked us "to remember that they are 10 years of age". But the law didn't. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were tried as adults.

"How do you feel now, you little bastards?" asked the Daily Star's front page on the day of the sentence. "Evil, brutal and cunning," said the Mail. The Mirror went for "Freaks of nature".

Despite the sensationalist, fear-mongering coverage of the Bulger case, my father was still taken by surprise when he first went on television to talk about his work. "When the producers of Eamonn Holmes's chat show invited me along to 'put across my side of the story', I naively believed them," he says. "I walked into the studios just before the programme went live. As it did, a huge 'Hooligans on Holiday' banner unrolled behind me. Then three women in the audience stood up with pictures of their dead children, who'd been killed by joyriders. Our kids had never killed anyone, and many hadn't even offended, but the producers were quite happy to confuse joyriders, murderers, young offenders and children in care.

"Throughout the negative press attention, social services knew the trips worked, and continued to place children with us. But the kids themselves were very upset and angry. They felt they were being verbally abused by the whole country."

In response to a Sun campaign, Michael Howard, who had become home secretary, (illegally) extended the sentences imposed on Venables and Thompson from 10 years to 15 years. And in response to the media furore surrounding Bryn Melyn, Howard also banned therapeutic trips abroad for children in care.

Recent media attention has turned to Edlington, South Yorkshire, where two brothers, aged 10 and 11, brutally burnt, stabbed and sexually assaulted two boys, aged nine and 11. This incident has the same ingredients as the Bulger case: the horrific attack, the disastrous parenting, the boys' escalating violence, and the failure of the relevant authorities to do anything about it.

It is a simple cause and effect; incidents like these don't just happen. But instead of tackling this problem rationally, we defer to hysteria and hollow accusations that solve nothing and protect no one.

These days, we have Facebook pages and YouTube video montages dedicated to James Bulger, created by people who, apparently, never even met him. Nobody will say that these are mawkish, sentimental and ultimately extremely damaging in their creation of monstrous, unsubstantiated fears about young people. Nobody will say to Denise Fergus, the mother of James Bulger, that it has got nothing to do with her swhen she demands that the Edlington boys be named. Nobody seems bothered that the media has casually dubbed the Edlington boys the "devil brothers" or "hell boys".

But amid this fresh wave of moral panic, there is a glint of optimism. A new documentary by Spirit Level Films, The Fear Factory, was launched in London on Monday, and attempts to untangle the perceptions we have about our "dangerous" young people. Increasingly frustrated with the perpetuation of stereotypes and the way young people are treated in care, the criminal justice system, and even schools, three organisations – Safer Wales Ltd, Construction Youth Trust and Addaction – commissioned the film, which includes interviews with politicians, heads of charities and teenagers. "We want the film to be a wake-up call to politicians, colleagues who work in this field, and to the media," says Barbara Natasegara, chief executive of Safer Wales.

A failure to intervene with a holistic approach early in the lives of young people at risk of offending has had stark consequences. We spend 11 times more on locking children up than on preventing youth crime. About 75% of young people leaving custody will reoffend, and 27% of adult prisoners have been in care. Reoffending by these former children in care costs about £3bn a year.

As a result of The Fear Factory, more than 40 charities have now formed a coalition to lobby the government to put a stop to our relentless demonisation of young people.

Seventeen years on, it still sickens me to remember the parents of the children in Bryn Melyn who gave newspaper interviews complaining that the way my father was treating their children was a waste of time, that what he was doing was wrong.

Helen McNutt
The Guardian
Wednesday 3 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/03/james-bulger-legacy-disturbed-children

It’ll be alright on the night

2010-02-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

The Fear Factory is an apt description because when I entered “Monster Mansion” (Wakefield Prison) in 1972 I was 21 years of age but mentally and physically more like a 14 year old. I hugged the wall like a shadow out of fear. A chicken waiting to be plucked by the vultures staring down from the landings above. I recall thinking it was a Vultures Paradise.

Whilst in prison I have studied. Links have been drawn between the factory and the prison. Just type prisons like factories into Google and see for yourselves.

When the prison authorities state that they feared me more as a law-abiding citizen applying the law in prison than they did when I was being violent, reminds me of the boy, youth, young man, and then adult as I stood in the dock facing a judge. I had invoked the judge looking over their shoulder, and they could not stand up to the legal scrutiny.

I became famous for my legal challenges, and made history with the Prisoners Votes Case, then authored a blog, which has a worldwide readership (save for China which blocks me with the Great Firewall of China). So, it is understandable to me that The Fear Factory production team got in touch with me to take part in their production. I was going down to London anyway, and popped into their studio/flat.

First impression, a flat it’s a Mickey Mouse production. This was quickly replaced when I met the team and admired their professionalism. The shoot was only meant to last a short while, but it appeared as though they had stumbled upon a gold mine and set to digging. This took time. A lot of time, in fact. It did mean that it impinged upon time I had mentally intended to donate to others. (They did get another visit to make up for my hastily changed plan).

They say that the proof is in the eating. The sampler is a tasty tease of better to come. I look forward to the screening on 1st of March. I intend to go down to London for it. I was unable to go to the premier of Underbelly, which I was a special adviser on and a character in it is loosely based upon me, therefore it’s a first for me if everything goes as planned.

John Hirst
http://jailhouselawyersblog.blogspot.com/

Young People’s Participation in the Youth Justice System

2010-02-26T04:31:00.000-08:00

Young offenders have the same right to have their views taken into account as other children and young people. However a new NCB report, Young People’s Participation in the Youth Justice System, has found that there are a number of barriers to participative approaches in youth justice services, despite evidence that young offenders who have a say in decisions that affect them are more likely to have better outcomes overall.

The report suggests that negative public perceptions of young offenders have resulted in political ambivalence as to whether young offenders ‘deserve’ a say, while staff culture and commitment and a lack of training on participative approaches can further hinder meaningful contributions by young people in their own assessments. Furthermore young offenders have low expectations about their ability to influence the plans that are made for them, despite welcoming the opportunity to have more say.

While some local services have developed their own initiatives to consult young offenders on issues that affect them, the report recommends that the Youth Justice Board lead the process by developing a participation strategy covering all aspects of the youth justice system. It is imperative that such a strategy establish mechanisms that will support the development of a culture of participation throughout youth justice services. In responding to the report, Frances Done, chair of the Board, has stated that the Board will consider its approach to participation and regard the development of a participation strategy as a high priority.

We know from evidence and experience that outcomes are more likely to be positive when young people have been active partners in shaping the services they receive. The approach to involving young people within the youth justice system in their own assessment and case management should also be reviewed, in partnership with young people. Developing a comprehensive participation strategy covering both individual and more general aspects of youth justice services could greatly improve outcomes for young offenders and enhance the job satisfaction of staff working with them.

Diane Hart
Principle Officer
Youth Justice and Welfare
National Children's Bureau

Criminal Justice Alliance

2010-02-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

It is not often than you see a good news story in the criminal justice arena, but against all expectations the tide does seem to be turning in youth justice. According to Government figures (http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/STR/d000895/index.shtml), the number of first time entrants into the youth justice system has fallen substantially, with 74,033 young people aged 10-17 receiving their first reprimand, warning or conviction in England in 2008-09, a decrease of a startling 21.6% from 94,481 young people in 2007-08 and down from a peak of 104,361 in 2006-07. Meanwhile the number of young people in custody has also fallen (http://www.cypnow.co.uk/bulletins/Youth-Justice/news/982724/?DCMP=EMC-YouthJustice), with 2,203 under-18s in custody in December 2009, down by nearly 1,000 from a peak of 3,175 in October 2002.

Clearly, too many young people still come into contact with the youth justice system, and nobody should be satisfied with what is still a high level of youth custody. But progress is, at last, being made. So what is causing this? Nobody seems to know for sure. The abandonment of the notorious ‘Offences Brought to Justice’ target has probably played a part in the reduction in the number of first time entrants into the youth justice system. This target had a disproportionate impact on under-18s, who were more likely to be targeted unnecessarily in the drive to meet it. Scrapping the target should have made it easier for the police to deal with minor offences informally.

Alongside this, a shaky political consensus appears to be emerging that too many young people are being criminalised, and that better ways can be found to address troublesome behaviour by children and young people. This is exemplified by the Government’s public statements in support of the falling number of first time entrants into the youth justice system, the Conservatives’ attempts, however clumsy, to find ways of addressing youth offending outside the formal youth justice system, and the Liberal Democrats’ criticism of the Government for their previous ‘unprecedented criminalisation of our children’. It is far from perfect, of course, and there are still far too many occasions when politicians from all parties use crime by young people as a way of scoring political points. But the atmosphere does seem to be less febrile than it was, particularly with regards to low-level offending, although whether this will survive a hotly-contested election campaign remains to be seen.

The falling number of first time entrants into the youth justice system will, in turn, have had a significant effect on the number of young people who, once caught up in the youth justice system, end up in custody. It is likely that other factors will also have had an impact. The use of custody may, for example, have been affected by the work of the Youth Justice Board to persuade courts and youth offending teams to have confidence in alternative options. However, why that would have been successful now, but not previously, is not clear. There is also a vibrant campaigning environment around the issue of youth justice, including, for example, the Prison Reform Trust’s Out of Trouble campaign (http://www.outoftrouble.org.uk/) and the work of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice (http://www.scyj.org.uk/). By and large, this work has the support of children’s charities such as the Children’s Society and the NSPCC, which arguably command more public support than traditional penal reformers. This campaigning work may finally be having an impact.

Whatever the causes, the drop in the use of youth custody, in particular, is extremely welcome. Unfortunately, there has been no parallel reduction in the adult prison population, which continues to grow at an unsustainable rate. So alongside a clearer understanding of what caused the reduction in the use of custody for young people and how this can be sustained, what we also need to examine is how similar gains can be made in reducing the adult prison population and reversing the escalation in the use, and the reach, of the adult criminal justice system.

Jon Collins,
Campaign Director,
Criminal Justice Alliance (www.criminaljusticealliance.org)

Help is needed to deal with the challenges of life ‘on the outside’

2010-02-24T04:23:00.000-08:00

It is worth remembering that nearly every person we lock up (as I write this post the current UK prison population stands at 83,655 – an increase of nearly 1,500 on this time last year) will be released back into the community one day.

Many of our clients tell us that the crucial few days after release is when the real battle starts. Most prisoners come out determined to go straight with no intention of ever seeing the inside of a cell again. Prison is a harsh, lonely, degrading experience with overcrowding compounding this (imagine having to share an in-cell, unconcealed toilet with a complete stranger – this is the reality of an adult prison rather than the image of three star luxury presented by some tabloids). The loss of liberty is the punishment element of prison but a side effect of this is that prisoners are often ill-equipped for life ‘on the outside’. Too many are released without stable accommodation to go to, help getting their finances sorted and support into work or training. Others simply find the outside world too overwhelming and the smallest things become a huge challenge. One man talked of being in tears at the station on his way home from prison because he couldn’t handle the bustle of a small suburban rail station. Another confided that he used to run out of shops in a panic when shopping with his kids because he couldn’t deal with crowds.

Brash, hardy exteriors are adopted as a mode of survival on the prison wing but these defences can come crashing down when people are released back into the community. St Giles Trust aims to help ease this transition by offering practical and emotional support to people leaving prison and handholding them through the following few weeks when the risk of re-offending is very high if the right support is not in place.

Our caseworkers are right by their side from the minute they are released if they need it and stay with them until they are settled. We will not abandon anyone by leaving them homeless and stranded – if necessary we will pay for emergency housing out of our own resources if family, local councils and housing associations cannot provide a roof.

The impact of this work is huge. For 16 months, St Giles Trust were funded by The London Probation service to provide post-release support to prison leavers returning to London. During this time over 1,500 prison leavers were referred to the service and we successfully housed over 1,000 of them who would have had nowhere to go otherwise. Only a handful were recalled to prison during this time.

Unfortunately, funding for this service came to an end. We are still providing an ad hoc version through various other smaller projects we have been able to get up and running to pick up the huge levels of unmet need. However, these are operating under considerable pressure and are no replacement for a dedicated service which provides a single point of contact for anyone leaving prison requiring support.

That is why we are calling for everyone who needs help on release from prison to be provided with the opportunity to be met and supported by someone who can help them get established outside and negotiate the rocky road to resettlement. Someone who has had a spell in prison will face huge barriers– many are homeless, connections with friends and family have often broken down and they may face discrimination when looking for employment or training.

Someone who commits a crime deserves to be punished – that is without question. But for too long now we have set ex-prisoners up to fail once they are released back into the community. Continuing to judge and discriminate against ex-offenders after they have finished their sentence serves no-one and ensures a one-way ticket back to prison, with all the associated costs and misery this brings. Surely everyone deserves a second chance?

Rob Owen,
Chief Executive, St Giles Trust
www.stgilestrust.org.uk

Why did The Nationwide Foundation fund the production of the film?

2010-02-22T02:12:00.000-08:00

Our interest in and commitment to supporting the rehabilitation of young offenders began in 2005. The Nationwide Foundation is grant-making charity, which provides funding to other charities and at that time we approved six grants to charities working to reduce reoffending and provide transition and resettlement support for young people leaving custody.Three of these charities were: Addaction, Construction Youth Trust and Safer Wales.

Initially the charities worked on their own projects, but we quickly recognised that they shared many goals and were each tackling the same obstacles in trying to provide an accurate portrayal of young offenders.

We decided to bring the charities together to foster a collaborative working relationship. We wanted the charities to share expertise and best-practice, and consider how they could collectively effect change.

By working together, the charities proposed that they challenge mainstream stereotypes about young offenders and influence change through the production of an informative, educational and emotive documentary.

Impressed with the project plan and keen to encourage meaningful partnership working in the charity sector, we provided the funding to create the film, which has become the Fear Factory.

The Nationwide Foundation has not influenced the charities or the film makers, Spirit Level Film on the content of the documentary, except to state from the outset that the aim was to educate and bring about positive change. This would reduce reoffending among young offenders and provide them with more opportunities to embrace a life free from crime, ultimately creating safer communities for us all to live in.

We eagerly look forward to seeing substantial, long-lasting benefits as a result of the project we have invested in. We want to see benefits both for the young people currently in and exiting the prison, as well as those who may benefit from alternative, non-custodial intervention.

Lisa Parker
Chief Executive
The Nationwide Foundation

To find out more about the work of the Nationwide Foundation, please visit: www.nationwidefoundation.org.uk

Association of Panel Members

2010-02-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

From 1909 until 2001, the primary role for community participation in the youth justice system has been as volunteer magistrates delivering summary justice to young people, with the ultimate sanction of imprisonment to teach lessons which - somehow- prevent their future offending. Youth Offending Panels are now in their 10th year of operating through directly engaging community volunteers in the rehabilitation of young people pleading guilty to behaviour which cross the boundaries of criminality, through Referral Orders delivering restorative justice.

The revised system, designed to deliver support services at one-stop-shops provided by newly-configured Youth Offending Teams, was greeted with euphoria and led to description of Panels by the then Youth Justice Board Chair, Rod Morgan, as the jewel in the crown. Yet the criminal justice floodgate was opened to children aged from 11, with the decade depicted as a crime-wave committed by ‘feral’ teenagers, and Panels confined to the backwaters as a ‘soft’ or superfluous diversion from jails accommodating up to 3000 under-18’s, to receive their just desserts.

Whilst conventional wisdom attributes children’s crime to moral deficits, easily remedied by the short, sharp shock of being ‘sent-down’, Community Panel Members recognise that behind the court orders lie stories of disastrous role models, unfulfilled potential, and institutional failures - only to be compounded through incarceration. We seek to challenge these children’s behaviour by ensuring that victims become the jury and amends are made; by agreeing contracts to engage support services to ensure that contextual factors which led to the crime are addressed. Yet despite an alarming reoffending rate for custodial sentences (75%) the community justice epitomized in Panel Members faces a constant challenge to increase magistrates’ confidence in community sentences - perceived as only applicable to trivial crimes, despite the lowest reoffending rate of all community sentences (45%).

This topsy-turvy position has finally been highlighted in recent excellent work by penal reformers, with sentencers’ confidence in custody being questioned by policy makers at all levels. Not least all 4 Children’s Commissioners, responsible for upholding the Human Rights of children in the United Kingdom. The economics of incarcerating young people (£325m) when weighed against an average 75% risk of re-offending upon release, simply don’t make sense.

At the community level, the Association of Panel Members (AOPM) has become an apologist for Restorative Youth Justice. With few resources other than the goodwill of volunteers, we beat the drum in favour of victim participation in solutions to the harm caused by young people in our communities; in favour of interventions targeted towards the social, emotional and behavioural deficits which disproportionately affect these children. And we are very reluctant witnesses to the sheer numbers of young people left behind by the education system, only to resurface in the custody suite.

Panel Members understand the ability of young people to come good in time with patient, affirming (but not condoning) adult support, as opposed to condemnation. We want to celebrate the sheer guts and determination it takes for young people, who went off the rails, to get back on track working with YOTs in partnership with members of their community. As volunteers, Panel Members are disinterested, dispassionate and freethinking participants in the complex process of corporate parenting, who know that our role is challenging to entrenched traditions. We are therefore a wild card in the pack, which sometimes renders our partnerships unstable. By keeping sight of the goal, we help children to move away from the so-called revolving door, by delivering the urban equivalent of the African saying; ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child.’

Baroness Neuberger’s 2009 review of volunteering in the criminal justice system provides the last word:
"A lack of investment in volunteer management inevitably results in volunteers having a bad experience. During the course of my research I have come across many cases of volunteers who have had a negative experience, as a direct result of poor investment in their management. This is more common where a statutory volunteer role is new, for instance in the case of panel members on Youth Offending Teams. The agency is still adapting to these changes and a supportive culture is still being developed. The Youth Justice Board has worked on a number of initiatives to support best practice in managing volunteers. Nevertheless, Government should be taking this very seriously if they wish Panel Members to stay and play a key role."

Sandra Beeton
Chair
Association of Panel Members (AOPM)

What about girls?

2010-02-17T02:34:00.000-08:00

One aspect of youth justice which is often sidelined in debate about reform is the situation of girls. Increasing numbers of young women are becoming caught up in a system which has been designed with the needs and offending patterns of boys in mind. There has been an overall failure to develop a gender-sensitive youth justice system, and there is a pressing need for this to change.

Though there does not appear to be a rise in their offending rates, girls are finding themselves drawn in the criminal justice system more frequently and are being convicted at a younger age. Responses to their offending tend to be more interventionist than for boys, resulting in larger numbers appearing in court. It is suggested that young women are being prosecuted for activities that, previously, they would not have, and the use of custody for girls has risen sharply.

These rising numbers, and the picture painted in the media of girls and young women as anti-social binge-drinkers, have created the popular misconception that girls’ offending and anti-social behaviour are becoming more prolific, more violent and generally spiralling out of control. The Government’s punitive approach to youth offending had obscured the particular vulnerabilities of these girls and young women.

While girls and young women caught up in the criminal justice system share many similar social problems to boys, there are also distinct differences which pose different challenges and which require different treatment and expertise. The experience of custody also affects boys and girls differently and inevitably their response to youth offender management. Girls who offend have often suffered from a history of physical and sexual abuse, as well as disruptive or troubled family backgrounds. Whilst there is no one route in to the criminal justice system, girls tend to have followed a general path from achieving little at school as a result of early disadvantage and social exclusion, leading to their subsequent disengagement, resulting in a lack of basic skills or qualifications, and a lack of hope for the future.

Young women offenders, as well as those at risk of offending, experience greater levels of emotional problems than boys, and many suffer from cripplingly low levels of self esteem. They experience extremely high rates of self harm, with levels almost twice that of the adult female population. Many have been in care, or have substance misuse problems, and they display higher than average mental health needs than the general population. Many who are taken into custody also suffer from the additional trauma of being separated, not only from their support networks, but from their own children.

By the time a girl or young woman comes into contact with the criminal justice system she is likely to have already experienced multiple problems in her life, and to have come from a deprived and socio-economically marginalised community. Taking them into custody clearly is not working to reduce offending. Instead it invariably exacerbates the problems they may be experiencing. These young women are vulnerable and victimised themselves, and in desperate need of care and support. With the right, targeted and personalised help they can be empowered to find another path and build a better future.

The average time between a girl’s first caution and being taken in to custody is half that of boys. This is part of the reason that early positive intervention is particularly critical for girls. There is a short space of time in which a girl can be diverted away from involvement in offending before she becomes formally involved in the youth justice system. The younger a girl is when this happens, the more damaging the effects on her.

Whilst much needed research has been done into the needs and experiences of adult women caught up in the criminal justice system, girls tend to have been subsumed under the category of ‘youth’ offending and not enough is known about them and what really does work. What we do know suggests that the more successful approaches include those that are specifically designed around the needs of the individual, are holistic in approach, involve the voices of young women and work positively with female peer groups.

As a society we are failing so many disadvantaged young women by not enabling them to achieve their full potential. We need to find new approaches to girls’ offending, as well as recognising the value of existing alternatives. If we are to move forward with a criminal justice strategy based on sound evidence, there is a real need to take in to account the voices and experiences of girls in order to create a system that is sensitive to gender and responsive to need.

About YWCA England & Wales

YWCA’s vision is that all girls and women, in particular those living in the most disadvantaged and deprived areas across England and Wales, are able to overcome the prejudice and barriers they face so that they can fulfil their potential.

YWCA provides support, guidance and learning opportunities for marginalised girls and women which are designed with their specific needs in mind. We also campaign with them to combat the discrimination and disadvantage they face.

Our women’s centres have evolved in recognition of the importance that girls and women place on being able to focus on their issues in an environment that is women-only and safe, and respectful of their diverse needs.

Gordon Brown set to end early jail release scheme

2010-02-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

• PM bids to head off Tory crime attack
• Labour accused of 'cynical' poll ploy

Gordon Brown is set to announce the end of the controversial early release scheme for prisoners before the general election in an attempt to blunt an expected Tory assault on the government's law and order policies.

The Observer can reveal that urgent discussions are under way between No 10, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office in preparation for an announcement within weeks.

Senior government sources say the prime minister may announce the end of the scheme in a major speech on law and order early next month, in which he is also expected to reveal new measures on neighbourhood policing.

Officials said the availability of prison places remained under review on a weekly basis, and that no final decision had been made. But a well-placed source said: "It is our intention to do this before the election if we can."

Last night the Tories, who have been consistent critics of the scheme, accused the government of a cynical manoeuvre aimed at making life difficult for a Conservative government after the election, which is expected on 6 May.

Alan Duncan, the shadow prisons minister, said the scheme should be ended only when conditions in prisons were right, rather than for political reasons. "It is right that the early release scheme should go, but only when the correct measures have been put in place to allow this to happen," he said.

"Labour is seeking deliberately to leave us with a poisoned pill by claiming credit for doing this in March, while knowing that it will leave us, after the election, with a crisis in June."

The early release scheme has been contentious since its introduction in 2007, with critics claiming it has resulted in murders and thousands of other crimes as prisoners have been let out early to relieve pressure on jail places.

Among the most controversial cases was that of Andrew Mournian, 36, who was released 18 days early from a jail sentence for attacking his partner, Amanda Murphy, a mother of two. Five days after his release, he battered her to death.

In 2008, Straw announced a ban on the early release of terrorists, following criticism after a man convicted of smuggling a blueprint for a missile into Britain was released 17 days early. Yassin Nassari had been sentenced to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment.

Under the rules of the programme, prisoners serving sentences of up to four years can be released 18 days before they would previously have been eligible. By the end of 2009, a total of 76,886 prisoners had been released early.

Ministers said the move was necessary to ease the pressure on prisons and would always be ended when it was "practically possible" and as more space became available. But critics have pounced on the timing of the announcement.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo), pointed out that the prison population was still extremely high. "They are doing this to outflank the Tories, who have already said they want to scrap it," he said. Fletcher said the scheme had resulted in a reduction of between 2,500 to 3,000 in the prison population, but said Napo opposed it because of the way in which it had been implemented.

"We didn't like it because there was no home circumstances check and no risk assessment; so they just turfed them out," he said. "And perpetrators of domestic violence were being let out and doing it again. Because they are released three weeks early, it wrong-foots all the authorities. At least if we had [the time] to plan we could have put panic buttons in a woman's flat, for instance."

Gary Streeter, a Tory MP on the home affairs select committee, claimed it was a "cynical ploy" by the government to end the measure just before an election. "The early release scheme has been a great source of contention and helped to undermine confidence in the British justice system. Nothing is beyond them in terms of cynical ploys. But I am glad if it is coming to an end; people should serve their full sentence – that is what the public wants," he said.

Charities also opposed the programme. Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said it had made it difficult to plan sentences and prepare prisoners for release. "But, in the scramble to end it, will government be able to capitalise on the success of its intensive community penalties, or is it being forced back on pouring public money down the drain of needless prison building?" she asked. "Until a government of any stripe is prepared to integrate its social and justice policies, and invest accordingly, prisons will lurch from crisis to crisis and one politically expedient idea to the next."

News of the government's planned announcement comes at the end of a week in which the Ministry of Justice said it was dropping plans to build a prison in Barking, east London. A jail to house 1,500 prisoners was to be built on the site of an old Ford factory. But a spokesman said the cost of protecting the site against flooding was too high.

Last year, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said the government was abandoning proposals for Titan prisons to hold 2,500 prisoners each. Instead, there would be five 1,500-place prisons, including the one in Barking and one at Runwell, in Essex. Officials said the Runwell plans were still on track.

In December, the latest month for which there are statistics, there were 2,187 early releases under the scheme. The Justice Ministry admitted that there had been 57 decisions to recall prisoners, with almost half linked to reoffending. A spokesman said last night: "Ministers have made clear they will end ECL [end of custody licence] as soon as there is sufficient capacity to do so; we are working extremely hard to build new places, with the fastest ever creation of prison spaces. We are keeping under review how long ECL remains in place in light of new prison capacity coming on stream."

guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 14 February 2010
Toby Helm and Anushka Asthana

Make Justice Work

2010-02-15T02:08:00.000-08:00

As we move into the party political gamesmanship which inevitably comes with a general election, criminal justice yet again will be used as a political football. Despite what politicians say behind closed doors - that is, in general they would agree with most of us who say we are locking up too many low level offenders and it is costing too much - I doubt they will see any votes in saying any of that in public. Yet it was interesting hearing Alan Duncan at the Clinks AGM recently talk of tackling "corrosive headlines" and the lack of cross party consensus in criminal justice - the two very real enemies in our battle to create a sensible criminal justice system. Perhaps we can all help him to tackle these corrosive headlines so that we can begin to breakdown the negative backlash caused by some of the ludicrous headlines which then hinder our ability to put in place real and lasting crime solutions.

Make Justice Work is a new media campaign focused on improving the public's understanding of the huge cost and ineffectiveness involved in locking up low level offenders for short sentences and the benefits of good community sentences which can reduce offending as well as addressing the reasons behind that offending. But critically the public will only be convinced if we can show them what works in the community.

I have just spent the most amazing two days with Youth at Risk, not only observing the experiences of the young people on their programme but also going through some of the processes ourselves. It has been one of the most rigorous experiences I have had in a long time and I defy anyone to suggest that addressing entrenched behaviours and attitudes is easy or unchallenging I have no doubt that most of them would have preferred a few weeks in prison. But sharing just a small part of these young people's transformation was a real wake-up call for those of us touching their experience. We all knew about Youth at Risk and the great work they do - but classically, seeing is believing.

There is so much good going on in our society around supporting young people like those at Youth at Risk. We really should be making sure that those outside the sector get a glimpse into this world. Only then will people's eyes be opened to the possibilities and opportunities available to young people by such programmes in the community.

Roma Hooper
Director
Make Justice Work

Barnardo's

2010-02-12T05:04:00.000-08:00

The rise in the prison population since Labour came to power in 1997 has been dramatic, with a third more people behind bars. But there has been an even more startling rise in the number of very young children imprisoned. In the decade from 1996 the use of custody for 10 to 14 year olds increased by a staggering 400%. England and Wales now stand out almost alone in Western society in routinely incarcerating large numbers of young children who offend.

The law is clear that children should only be sent to prison if their offending has been grave or both serious and persistent. Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has further asserted that children as young as 12, 13 and 14 should only ever be incarcerated when it is the only way to protect the public. So are the teenagers being sent to custody guilty of grave crimes or of serious and persistent offending? Are they all violent? Do they pose an unmanageable risk to the public? In fact, research by Barnardo’s published last year (Locking up or giving up?) shows that many of them are neither violent nor dangerous. They have been found guilty of non-violent offences and some are guilty only of summary offences, the least serious on the statute book and those which, in the case of adults, are rarely punished by imprisonment.

Barnardo’s examined 214 cases of children under 15 who had been sentenced to custody but had not committed grave crimes or been given extended sentences for serious offending. We found that one in five was in prison for breach of a community sanction and nearly a third had not committed a serious or violent offence. Overall, 35 per cent of the sample did not appear to meet the custody threshold as set out in legislation. This clearly demonstrates that the government’s intention of making custody for young children genuinely a last resort is not reflected in sentencing practice.

When we looked at the life circumstances of the children it was depressingly clear that those who end up in custody are almost always those most failed by our welfare and education systems. Half had experienced some form of abuse, one in five were living in care,16 per cent had special educational needs and 8 per cent had attempted suicide at some point in their young lives.
If these children had been given the support they needed earlier in their lives there is every reason to believe that they would not have ended up in prison. Instead they are more likely to be written off by the age of 14, failed by mainstream services when it really matters.
Using custody for children who have not committed grave and serious crimes is costly and ineffective. They do not pose a danger to the public, if anything they are a greater danger to themselves than anybody else. Can anyone really believe that we need to lock so many of them away?

Enver Solomon
Barnardo’s
Assistant Director, Policy

Children’s Rights Alliance for England

2010-02-10T03:21:00.000-08:00

What is it about children that have come into conflict with the law that seemingly makes them so different to other children when it comes to protecting their human rights? Vilification and public shame are somehow acceptable when children are deemed “bad”. Yet the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which the UK became a party in 1991 gives additional rights to children in conflict with the law, to protect their privacy and best interests, and to promote their right to a fair trial – recognising their particular vulnerability when coming into contact with the criminal justice system. These children are often facing serious and multiple challenges in their lives, and may well have already been failed by adults and public agencies. Our obligations under international human rights law require that we give these children, like all other children, the support and help they need to achieve positive rehabilitation and develop to their full potential.

International human rights bodies, including the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, have regularly and severely criticised the UK for its treatment of children in conflict with the law. With one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world; more children being criminalised at an early age as a result of anti-social behaviour legislation; high representation of children in stop and search figures; the over-use of remand; the trial and sentencing of children in adult courts; serious concerns from inspectors about squalid and unsafe conditions in custody; concerns about the quality and continuity of education and training for children who are locked up; poor provision for physical and mental health in custodial settings; strip-searching and painful restraint techniques authorised in child prisons; and 30 child deaths in custody since 1990, it is clearly evident to anyone who cares to look that our juvenile justice system is completely at odds with human rights principles. The best interests of children are regularly coming in second to political considerations. Perceptions of high levels of child criminality fuelled by a predominantly negative media and conflicting government messages about children do not help.

A radical overhaul of the juvenile justice system is urgently needed. In fact, it is long overdue. Legislation, policies, practices and child custodial settings must be designed and developed based on the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments. This would require establishing the principle in domestic law that custody should only ever be used as a measure of last resort, and always for the shortest possible period of time. It would require the removal of “punishment” from the statutory purposes of sentencing children and the introduction of a renewed focus on rehabilitation. It would require child custodial settings to be child-centred and non-punitive in culture, and to provide mainstream and high quality education or training for children. It would require that children’s own views and experiences are actively sought, responded to and taken into account in relation to all aspects of their lives. And most importantly, it would require the recognition that children in conflict with the law are children first, and as such their best interests must always be a primary consideration in all decisions affecting them. Only by taking this approach can we fulfil our legal and moral obligations to children and serve the interests of wider society by providing conditions in which they have a chance to thrive.

Children’s Rights Alliance for England

About the Children’s Rights Alliance for England
The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) seeks the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in England. Our vision is of a society where the human rights of all children are recognised and realised. CRAE protects the human rights of children by lobbying government and others who hold power, by bringing or supporting test cases and by using regional and international human rights mechanisms. We provide free legal information and advice, raise awareness of children’s human rights, and undertake research about children’s access to their rights. We mobilise others, including children and young people, to take action to promote and protect children's human rights. Each year we publish a review of the state of children's rights in England.

Adulthood: ‘Ready or Not’

2010-02-08T02:09:00.000-08:00

Does adulthood arrive when a young person reaches 16, 18 or even 21 years old? No, gradually, most young people between the years 16–25 work their way towards living independently. The State, however, requires lines, boundaries, legal clarity – for entitlements, responsibilities, and so on.

As a result, the journey into adulthood can feel like dropping off a series of steep cliffs, encountered at 16 years, 18 years and sometimes beyond. Very few parents expect their sons or daughters to stand on their own feet at an arbitrary date; most support their children into their early 20s and beyond in some way or another. However, estimates put more than half a million young people aged 16–25 without no immediate family or wider community to help them. Many face a desperate series of no-win situations.

We work with thousands of young people, often trapped in a daunting web of difficulties. We help them as individuals, not just dealing with the ‘label’ with which they are sent to us – homeless, unemployed, care leaver, offender – and so on. Most young people want the same things as everyone else – to find a job they enjoy, somewhere safe to live and to stand on their own feet. Our work can make a lasting difference in young people’s lives, for their families and for the whole community, but this is not made easier by government policies or society.
Childhood and adulthood are not mutually exclusive life-stages. While childhood is considered a formative time, adulthood is seen as a period of attainment ranging over several decades of achievements in career development, family life, economic stability and growth and well-being. Jammed in between is adolescence; a ‘catch-all’ term for the stage of life that is not quite one thing or another and when policy, legislation, social and healthcare provision tend to work around arbitrary age markers.

During this ‘nearly’ time, many of the events that signify adulthood will occur. The fact that these events occur at this time does not mean that young people will always be able to handle their new responsibilities in an ‘adult’ way. This is largely driven by the subjective views of legislators and policy makers on when young people can be allowed adult status.

The arbitrary definition of adulthood based on age does not address the emotional dimension of becoming an adult. Nor, does it consider whether events in a young person’s formative years have secured them the best life-chances or if they have access to supportive networks like family, friends and community.

When asked if becoming a fully independent adult occurs at the age of 18, young people we spoke to overwhelmingly said “No”. When asked to identify the events that indicate becoming an adult, common responses were
• Moving out of your parents or carers home
• Being responsible for your personal health and well being
• Caring for someone else

We know young people between 16 and 25 have distinct and acute support needs, which require tailored interventions. We are particularly concerned about the provision of resettlement services for young offenders.

Catch22 piloted a two-year project called RESET that tested various models of resettlement support for young people. The partnership aimed to make a real difference to the lives of young offenders and develop a resettlement model that could be widely adopted to help cut reoffending levels. It involved more than 50 partners, including the YJB, the prison service and the DCFS. The service provides:
• A dedicated resettlement support worker to provide personal support and
practical help and co-ordination of a package of care,
• Education and/or training, with specialist assistance to access this,
• Specialist family support, mediation where needed,
• Mentoring where appropriate,
• Supported accommodation where needed,
• Help with any substance misuse, as needed, and
• Assistance for young people to take ownership of their resettlement and future.

A cost-benefit analysis of the pilot showed that where a persistent offender is offered an effective resettlement package, the frequency and seriousness of offending is reduced, and the cost to the taxpayer is reduced to £65,707 – a saving of £12,333 per offender against the normal average cost of £78,040 per year.

If this saving is expressed across the total number of young people aged 15-17 who are given DTOs (Detention and Training Orders) in England and Wales (approximately between 6,000 and 6,500) the total saving to the taxpayer is £80 million.

While the limited sample size of the RESET pilot would need to be reinforced by further reconviction studies before concrete conclusions could be drawn, even a conservative assumption shows that good support in resettlement leads to a reduction of 35% in frequency and 10% in seriousness of offending.

It would be wrong to assume that every young person requires specific support during this transitional phase of their life, however, to assume that the need for support will neatly arise at a specific age is nonsense. It would seem that determining policies and legislation based on age criteria helps the legislators and policy makers but does not help those they are intended to support.

The majority of young people we asked agreed that becoming an adult is not a matter of reaching a certain age as people mature at different speeds. We need a system that formally recognises the transition to adulthood and supports those passing through it with policies and legislation that deliver around need and not birthday.

Vulnerable young people; those in tough situations, are often disproportionately affected by the gaps in support created by a ‘single point of entry’ approach to adulthood. As our policy makers and legislators continue to enforce an artificial and one-dimensional view of when becoming an adult occurs; we believe that now is the time for decisive action to overhaul our entire approach to young adulthood. We need to recognise that the period of late teens and mid-20s is a vital period of transition and young people who lack a family and community network to give them emotional and financial support need better coordinated policies.

We must create clear accountability for the achievement of basic outcomes in the lives of young adults. This accountability framework should extend from central government downwards, and should include policies that secure good outcomes: a job, a safe place to live and a stable future, and thereby avoid the damaging impact of negative labels.

Joyce Moseley
Chief Executive
Catch22

Attend to consciousness, the key factor.

2010-02-05T02:14:00.000-08:00

I think it is worthwhile pointing out, as this film will, that it is unhelpful to our children, who will be our nation’s citizens, to exaggerate the scale of problems that they are responsible for.

I would, however, like to take a different approach to that of criticising anyone, including the journalists and the media, and offer proven solutions to the problems that our children are experiencing.

That’s my profession, giving people proven solutions. Or, should I better say, giving people the ability to solve their problems themselves in a more coherent manner. I am a teacher of Transcendental Meditation.
So many problems bearing down on our youngsters and it seems difficult to know where to start in attempting to solve them, particularly if the key problem is generally unknown.

The key problem is one of low levels of consciousness in the individual and in society. That one factor, consciousness, stands at the back of every decision that we make and, if you can change that then behaviour will change automatically. It also, of course, stands at the back of every article that a newspaper publishes.
If there is a good enough quality of technique to swing the individual spontaneously into a more positive pattern of life then all sorts of worthwhile spinoffs occur, both for themselves and people who care about them.

If you had a hand in choosing the benefits of such a turnkey technique would the following feature in your design? These form the outcomes of an initiative using Transcendental Meditation.

• Supportive and complementary to valued interventions currently in use
• Propagating happiness, reducing anxiety and depression, eliminating stress
• Undemanding for the practitioner, not a mental skill that one has to work at, it becomes a very private thing
• Something that the mind will like, and will be encouraged to do again and again
• Definitely not a religion, no belief is required
• Solid body of evidence to check, including case studies, putting it head and shoulders above anything else available

http://www.mum.edu/tm_research/welcome a leading brain researcher speaks

• Not necessary for all to learn as effect spills over onto non-practitioners
• Non-contextual—it will work anywhere in any situation
• Accessible to learn within a few hours
• Convenient to do anywhere.

John Markham
Director for Rehabilitation: Global Country of World Peace (UK)
Maharishi Foundation

Tories 'distributed misleading figures on violent crime'

2010-02-03T03:51:00.002-08:00

BBC investigation finds Conservatives omitted Home Office caveats about use of crime statistics

The Conservatives today denied distorting statistics amid claims that they distributed misleading figures on violent crime.

Official figures sent out for campaigning purposes to Tory activists in constituencies throughout England and Wales appeared to show that there had been sharp increases in violence during Labour's time in office.

But a BBC investigation found that the Conservatives omitted Home Office warnings that the figures for the periods before and after 2002 were not comparable because of a change in the way violent crime was recorded.

Instead of police officers deciding whether an incident should be recorded as a violent crime, the decision was given to the alleged victim, with the effect of forcing up recorded violence by an estimated 35% in the first year, according to the BBC.

The British Crime Survey suggested that people's experience of violent crime has in fact fallen by around 50% since 1995.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, defended using the statistics without any warning to alert readers to the change in recording methods.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning: "There are certainly changes in the recording methods, but the point is that they are the only comparators available. They are published by the Home Office.

"We don't create crime figures. We use the official crime figures published by the Home Office. The Home Office has continued to use the same comparators. As an opposition party, we don't make the statistics. We can only use what the Home Office publishes."

Grayling said that the British Crime Survey was not a reliable guide to violent crime because it omitted offences such as murder and manslaughter.

He said that an independent assessment of the Home Office's use of statistics in 2006 found that warnings attached to official figures were designed to be politically advantageous to the government.

"If you talk to anybody in the streets, and particularly in the poorest areas which are most affected by violent crime, you will find people will absolutely say that violent crime has risen sharply over the last 10 years," he said.

"The reality is that that is the life they are experiencing. The problem we have got to deal with is not debates over statistics. It is actually sorting out these problems, it is delivering better policing in these areas and getting to grips with the problems in these communities."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/03/tories-violent-crime-statistics/print

The solutions are already out there

2010-02-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

The media coverage of the Doncaster boys who abused two other children has drawn vast and varied comment – but most of it has one thing in common - the need to blame. It has to be someone’s fault, the reasoning goes, so let’s find who it is and then we can all rest. Some are blaming the social workers, others the parents, then we have the politicians- they must have something to do with it, or maybe it was the Mayor for appointing a pie man to run its children’s services.

But when the blood letting is over, when anger has subsided, will we be left with a sustained desired to really understand the problem and in doing so find a solution?

Thankfully the media is moving on from simply demonising the two perpetrators of these appalling crimes. There is at last a willingness to ask why did these boys turn out like this? Research is revealing that neglected children have not had the nurturing experiences needed for areas of the brain to develop that enable them to control their emotions and behaviour. But then doesn’t it make sense that if a child is brought up with little care or respect, they may not know how to care or respect others. If they have been treated more like a thing than a human being, it seems fairly obvious that they may have learned to treat others as things rather than human beings. And if they are shouted at, abused, and their feelings ignored, they may become adept at shouting, fighting, abusing and disregarding the feelings of others. A little reflection and a desire to understand leads anyone to these conclusions.

So we trace the problem back one generation, and find that the parents of these anti-social children were neglectful – but then how did the parents become so dysfunctional? If we use the same reasoning we find two grown people who may well have been damaged from their own neglected childhood. It seems to me that if your aim is just to find someone to blame, you will always get the satisfaction you seek. But you may not find the solution. The solution lies in our willingness to understand, and to exercise one or our greatest human assets – empathy. When I worked with children in care 30 years ago, as a residential care worker – at first, try as I might, I couldn’t stop being judgemental of the children’s bad behaviour, until I got to know the home life they had come from – and then I couldn’t help wondering how I would have turned out if I had been through these young peoples experience of life. I thought about it for a while over cups of tea, on long drives or bracing walks and I came to my conclusion: taking into account my ability to get very angry about injustice and any form of parental heavy-handedness, I think my behaviour would have been much worse than the children I was working with. If you were to reflect on this same question, if you were to imagine yourself brought up in a chaotic, neglectful and violent household, how do you think you would have turned out?

Look at the pattern – as a group, offenders have lower literacy levels, and poor mood control leading to anger management problems than the rest of the population. Neglectful upbringing commonly leads to impaired brain functioning that results in poor mood control affecting the ability to concentrate in school, self-modify behaviour or develop empathy – which wrecks the ability to do well in life and have good relationships. Children who suffer abuse or neglect in childhood are more likely to become offenders. Some believe that neglect and abuse damages a child early and permanently. Yes, there are windows of time in our development that are primed for us to absorb deeply and become imprinted by our environment – for good or bad. But research also suggests the brain is much more plastic than we ever thought and has vast capacity to learn, unlearn and move on. Some may need more patience and support than others, but people can move on and grow. It all depends how far we are prepared to go to understand and help those whose life experience has been so much less fortunate than our own. At any point we can fall back on the short-lived satisfaction of judging others or we can take time to reflect a little, try to understand, put ourselves in another’s shoes.

And where will all this compassion lead? There is always the worry that if we reduce in any way the punishment we meter out for criminal behaviour there won’t be any discouragement for crime. But if we really want to cure the problem, perhaps its time to look around and see that we already have some exceptional resources – people Like Camilla Batmanghelidjh, founder of the Kids Company. Or Maura Jackson, who has worked to create turn-around environments to help women reduce re-offending through Home Office initiatives. Or Dan Hughes who has done so much to create successful therapeutic approaches for neglected children. There are other grass roots workers doing exceptional work in Youth Offending teams – like Denbigh in North Wales – or Parent Support Advisors self organising to set up innovative groups to help failing children – like the team in Somerset. Or staff in Family Intervention Projects around the UK. Just browse the coalition members on this site and see how much commitment and compassion there is out there making a difference. Not to mention the innovative prison workers, social workers, chaplains and volunteers who are quietly doing amazing work unknown to the rest of us, day after day helping to turn peoples lives around. There may not presently be enough of these people, but they are there.

If politicians and media focussed their attention on seeking out these innovators in social care and therapeutic interventions, it wouldn’t take too long to find what works and how best to train practitioners in these approaches. The solutions are already out there. Granted, the scale of the problem is large and has probably been steadily building for generations. But the very existence of innovative workers who know how to effect lasting change in people who have been given up on by the rest of society gives us reason to be very optimistic.

Wendy Marshall
Co-founder
Hope Mountain

Chance UK

2010-01-29T05:04:00.000-08:00

Like many other partners in the Fear Factory coalition, Chance UK is part of the early intervention movement which is the future of the fight against crime.

We want to protect the future victims of crime by reducing the number of 94,000 children who enter the youth justice system every year. Because this number will clearly lead to a lot of future victims of crime.

We all know that prevention is better than cure. It is easier, cheaper and quicker to prevent someone turning to a life of crime than it is to help them turn away from it. It saves the massive financial, social and emotional cost that such a life will lead to.

Think of a teenage boy who is just starting a life of crime. Rewind back to his primary school years – research shows that there is an 80% chance he was showing signs of behavioural problems then. He might have been getting into fights with other children, found it hard to concentrate in class and been excluded from school several times, leaving him facing permanent exclusion from the school system.

Already low in self esteem, perhaps experiencing a difficult home life, this child will be far more likely to start spending time with negative influences in the form of older children who are also outside the mainstream school system. He will look for a sense of belonging in this group, and be happier to do whatever task the group sets for him, no matter how immoral or illegal. And once in the youth justice system, experts agree that it is very difficult to take the boy out of it, or to reduce the number of victims of his crimes.

But we can stop all this. By spending a bit of time one-to-one with the boy while he’s still at primary school, building up his self esteem and providing positive outlets for their energy and talents. It’s the everyday men and women who mentor the children that do this work, which leads to calmer children in the home, more stable families and better education not just for that child, but for all his classmates as well.

It’s up to all of us to not just change perceptions of the children, but to challenge their potential; do something practical to change a child’s future. As Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Matt Collins
Chance UK

The Youth Crime Arms Race

2010-01-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

Politicians from all parties are engaged in an arms race of rhetoric in relation to their approach to children in contact with the criminal justice system. The media fuels the arms race with sensationalist headlines: ‘yobs’, ‘asbo kids’, ‘monsters’ and ‘evil’ have become common place, encouraging a vicious cycle in which politicians find themselves locked into increasing the punitive stakes to satisfy the appetites of the media and populist opinion.

The increasingly punitive approach that has emerged over the last 20 years, whether it be in creating more crimes, creating longer sentences, or reducing the quality of type of prison that children are sent to, have left our society in a position where we are spending £415 million a year on incarcerating children in prisons that do not work – a shocking 75% of children reoffend within a year of being released, higher than any other age group in prison.

Behind the headlines and political rhetoric lie the facts of who these children are. 71% of children in custody have been involved with or in the care of social services; 2 out of 5 girls and 1 out of 4 boys have suffered violence at home; 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 20 boys have suffered sexual abuse. Educational, behavioural and mental health problems are rife – 85% show signs of a personality disorder. The prevalence of depression, self harm and suicide is higher amongst incarcerated children that any other sector in our society – 89% of girls in our prisons deliberately self-harm and children in custody are 18 times more prone to take their own life than children of the same age in the community.

Children in prison are the product of chaos, neglect and abuse, but rather than help these children we incarcerate them, locking them away with the problems in our society we would rather not face. To continue the rhetoric arms race is both nonsensical and irresponsible. It damages these children further at an extraordinary cost to the tax payer. But it is easier to separate these children from the rest of us, to point the finger of blame and label them as an ‘other’ than to take responsibility that it is our society and its failings that has made them who they are.

Andrew Neilson
Assistant Director
the Howard League for Penal Reform

The Place2Be: the case for early intervention

2010-01-22T05:25:00.000-08:00

Most juvenile crime is committed in mid adolescence. Much of it is petty and needs no more than a firm caution and plenty of educational, work and recreational opportunities. A relatively small but significant proportion commit more serious crimes. There are various reasons for this but, regardless of socio-economic conditions, most are struggling with emotions that they can’t cope with. They are in varying degrees very angry, scared, lonely or wary, usually for good reason, and without help or understanding, they turn to crime as some form of release or expression.

The Place2Be recognises that these teenagers were young children but only a few years before – and that most of their emotional problems were brewing in childhood well before they got involved in crime. And so we believe that it makes sense to make contact with them early and offer support before things build up out of proportion.

The Place 2Be is basically an early intervention service and we know that we can prevent some children from entering the youth justice system at a later stage.

It is a voluntary organisation that has developed during the last 15 years a highly valued and respected school based counselling service in 17 regions across England, Scotland and Wales. We work in 155 schools, mostly primary. We support teachers and parents; we offer a self referral service for all children in the schools (approx 50000 children) and we provide individual and group counselling to those children who particularly need it.

Children, by and large as a result of our intervention, are in a better position to learn and access their education; parents feel more confident in handling their children; teachers feel better supported in understanding and responding to the children in their classrooms. We are encouraged by the many positive comments of head teachers who are quite clear that we make a big difference to the overall well being of the whole school and to the mental health of the children.

We very much want to be part of the coalition to call for the depoliticisation of young people and for more preventative and humane ways of addressing the problems in youth crime.

Peter Wilson
Clinical Adviser
The Place2Be

Why did we commission “the Fear Factory”?

2010-01-15T02:47:00.000-08:00

With funding from The Nationwide Foundation, three Third Sector agencies came together to commission this film, Safer Wales Ltd, Construction Youth Trust and Addaction. We all work intensively with young people who are either offenders or at risk of offending, to break the cycles of vulnerabilities, and prevent re-offending.

Frustration with External Factors
We have become, over the past 15 years or so, increasingly frustrated with the external factors which work against us and the young people themselves. In particular with how they are viewed, and treated, both within the criminal justice system, and also to some extent in schools, or in the care system, and in particular by the media, which we feel has a lot to answer for in perpetuating stereotypes and demonising young people, lessening their chances of exiting from the dire circumstances some of them find themselves in.

Wake Up Call – we need a Cross-Party Solution
We want the film, to be a wake-up call – to politicians, colleagues in the Third, Public and Private sectors who work in this field, and to the media. We want to ask you to join this coalition to develop and commit to a realistic and practical way forward on youth justice; and reject a system in which young people and crime are used as pawns to sell papers or to attract votes.

We want all of our politicians to work on a cross-party solution, and deal with the issue with proper long term planning, policy and delivery, and evaluation over a longer period.

Young people are entering the criminal justice system at younger and younger ages. We need to be asking the question why? Where are we failing them so badly that no one seems to be picking up the signs early enough to prevent this?

“Somewhere to go and something to do”
Consultation with young people who are “hanging around” on the streets, consistently shows the same result. They want somewhere to go, and something to do. It’s not rocket science. Too often, the same level of short-sightedness results in money being spent on practical measures that can end up alienating the young people even more – costly resources such as CCTV cameras and alley-gating schemes, please the electorate and meet short term community safety targets, whilst longer term or more creative solutions like more detached youth services and facilities, or, for example, the community (weekend, evening and school holiday) use of schools, are often talked about, but not delivered.

“All I wanted was an adult to talk to......................”
Many agencies in the Third Sector, including Safer Wales, find themselves delivering programmes to prevent “re-offending”, and we know that mentoring or other support schemes, and other interventions – if they are engaged with on a voluntary basis and occur at the right time – can make a huge difference to offending or reoffending behaviour. But the question we should be asking ourselves is why do these schemes need to exist? – Why are these young people getting into offending behaviour in the first place? – How is it that we have not effectively tackled and managed risk factors and vulnerabilities evidenced over 10 years ago - what have we really done to tackle poor literacy, poor parenting, low educational achievement, mental health issues, child abuse and plain old poverty?

Short-termist thinking doesn’t work...
The answer is that much has been done – but most of it in short term bursts, measured over 2 – 3 years. Partly this is because much new work is done with grant funding, which has a shelf life of 3 years at best. Partly, it is to do with performance reporting within agencies and with grant funders; targets (again annual or 2 – 3 year at most, coinciding with the electoral cycles), often related to what both local and national politicians want to demonstrate they have done on crime and disorder, to the electorate. It is also partly to do with the fact that some local CJS partners (the police and the CPS for example) may have centrally set annual targets which pro-actively ensure that more incidents are recorded and more young people are charged, and so, whilst they are all members of crime and disorder partnerships or other statutory partnerships, such as those which concern children and young people, they are constrained in their action, and there is no incentive to undertake things in a different fashion.

These things reflect the fact that no guidance over the past 30 years has taken into account the basic fact that if you want to prevent youth offending, you have to analyse plan and evaluate in a continuous process, long term, at least for a 5 – 10 year period. For example a literacy or vocational skill initiative which is undertaken in one year may support more 13 year olds to stay in school, which could impact on youth offending figures in 5 years time. Practically speaking this is about the years in which a young person may be most vulnerable to criminality – age 10 –20. The wider picture, tackling poverty and poor parenting, health issues etc – starts in early years and could go right through to age 25.

Join the coalition...
We want national and local politicians to work with us on these issues, and not put obstacles in the way; we want national and local media to stop stereotyping and demonising young people.

We need to act on this issue – TOGETHER and NOW – I appeal to my colleagues in the Third sector and elsewhere – sign up to the Coalition, and let’s start getting this right. We are delighted that so many organisations have already signed up to the coalition and hope many more will do the same.

Barbara Natasegara MBE
Chief Executive
Safer Wales Ltd

The Fear Factory Blog

2010-01-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

The Fear Factory Blog will feature contributions from coalition members, key stake holders, organsiations and individuals working in the field of youth justice.