Clause 25
Offender Management Bill
11:15 am
Mark Williams (Shadow Minister, Welsh Affairs; Ceredigion, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 40, in clause 25, page 18, line 25, leave out subsection (5).
The amendment stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. I think that the appropriate expression may be that I have been left holding the baby, but I shall proceed. Clause 25(5) allows the Secretary of State to direct that some young people be removed from young offender institutions into adult prisons once they have reached the age of 18. We seek to remove that subsection from the Bill.
Before 2000, the law required that 18 to 20-year-olds be held in young offender institutions. Approximately 9,000 young adults aged between 18 and 20 are now in prison in England and Wales. The Government attempted to reduce the minimum age of imprisonment to 18 in section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. Perhaps in the light of pressure from interested parties that were rightly concerned about the standard of provision for young people in adult prisons, that section was not brought into effect. The Home Office has called in interested groups to consider the specific needs of the 18 to 20-year-old age group, including standards for the management of offenders in custody and in the community. I should be interested to know the Minister’s feelings about that consultation and the views of those who were consulted.
The Government are attempting to enact an idea to which many groups, such as Rainer, the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform, are opposed. I cite the views expressed by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons in her 2004-05 annual report, which stated:
“Our reports continue to document the inadequate provision for young adults”.
Is prison the best place for 18 to 20-year-olds? This age group suffers severe difficulties and therefore requires special attention. The Prison Reform Trust found that 78.4 per cent. of young men released from prison in 2002 were reconvicted within two years of release.
We have heard about the general problems of mental health from which young people suffer proportionately more highly than others. To deal with the problems of education and training as well as mental health problems, special provision is needed to accommodate such needs. Reducing reoffending in this age group requires us to prepare young offenders for the world and to teach them skills that we often take for granted, such as how to organise personal finances and how and where to look for employment. We have often discussed such needs in the Committee. Without being taught those skills and receiving other treatment for drug abuse and mental health problems, young adults will remain as likely as ever to reoffend. Crucially—the Minister showed his personal commitment to this in his evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee—that cannot be done in prisons.
The 2004-05 report of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons stated:
“The poorest provision at present is to be found in establishments that hold young adults within an adult population.”
Different age groups have different needs, but there is inadequate funding in prisons to take account of such needs. The Prison Reform Trust report “A Lost Generation: the experiences of young people in prison” revealed that far too many 18 to 20-year-olds were being moved around an overcrowded system and experiencing impoverished regimes involving long hours locked up without the support and supervision that they require, causing disruption and distress.
Will the provision as drafted make the situation worse? Will it not be a case of having no room for young adults in secure training centres because resources are a big issue, which means that they will be put into prisons instead? The Minister knows that there is a problem in Wales, as his evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee showed. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough referred to the matter in his contribution on mental health issues. Can the Minister assure us that the measure will not be used as an excuse to free up space in the already overcrowded youth custody system?