Clause 25
Offender Management Bill
11:15 am
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ceredigion for speaking to the amendment and for the comments from the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. I wholeheartedly agree that we have tobe careful about this issue. I want to reassure the Committee and, I hope, the hon. Member for Ceredigion that we are seeking a contingency for the reasons that he outlined. Clearly there will have to be a great deal of discussion, and I will come to some of the things we are already doing in terms of adult offenders and what needs to happen.
A project was set up as part of the National Offender Management Service offender management programme to look at management and standards for young adult offenders by March 2007. It is talking to the stakeholders that the hon. Gentleman quoted, including Rainer and a variety of bodies. The project has carried out four reviews of matters relating to young adult offenders: age range; legislative arrangements for their management; custodial estate provisions; and community provisions. Each review was informed by an examination of recent publications, analysis of statistical data, workshops and focus groups, and in addition meetings were held with operational staff and offender policy leads, the voluntary community and private sector, leading interest groups, inspectorates and the prison and probation ombudsman. The team also visited a number of prisons, youth offender institutions and probation areas, including the north-west pathfinder for offender management. The project has worked closely with the Youth Justice Board throughout.
The age range review has examined the practice across all Departments, good practice overseas and research evidence in relation to offending patterns and maturity. There is an emerging argument in favour of looking to realign our age definitions in line with other agencies, but the full implications need further exploration before any firm recommendations are put to Ministers. As yet, no firm decision has been made. Decisions on legislative changes, if necessary, will be made once any change options have been decided; for example in respect of YOI age range definitions.
The custodial and community reviews have been based on an assessment of the way forward on the key characteristics of the young adult offenders age group and, consequent on those, the development of a regime to reduce the reoffending. The review of the custodial estate has identified options for the future management of young adult offenders. The priorities of public protection and reducing reoffending while ensuring that vulnerable offenders are protected will determine the preferred option, dependent on the offender need profile and the outcome of the cost-benefit analysis.
I hope that that underlines what the Government are trying to do with young adult offenders and young people provision across Government, focusing on prevention and then dealing with reoffenders. I have been impressed with the work of organisations such as SmartJustice, in the deflections that they are trying to achieve in the development of young offenders. We are attempting not to put 18-year-olds in prison but to enact a contingency that is required under current legislation.
Subsection (5) allows detention and training order trainees who become 18 during the course of their sentences to be placed in an adult prison, which is a necessary provision for a situation that might arise when section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act is brought into force. Section 61 abolishes the sentence of detention in a young offenders institution that is currently available for 18 to 20-year-olds. Following that change, if we then decided that young offenders institutions would no longer be provided for 18 to 20-year-olds, that would create a problem for the under-18 estate, because moving an 18-year-old trainee to a young adults institution would no longer be possible. Clause 25 would instead enable him or her to be placed in an adult prison.
I might be asked why 18-year-old DTO trainees cannot stay in the juvenile estate until the end of their sentences. There is no difficulty in a trainee remaining for a reasonable period, but an offender who is just under 18 at the time of conviction may be over 18 by the time sentence is passed and may then have to serve up to 12 months in custody. He or she could then well be over 19 by the end of the custodial period. An even more extreme case would be if the trainee was then released from custody but subsequently breached the terms of the notice of supervision. He or she could be sent back to custody by the court. By that time, the trainee could be over 20.
Forcing the Youth Justice Board to place 19 or 20-year-olds in the under-18 estate, where they would be mixing with 15-year-olds and so on, is clearly not desirable. There are obvious safeguarding implications. As I have tried to make clear, the policy on young adult offenders in custody is currently under review and no decision on the way forward has yet been taken. We are listening to the groups—experts in the area—that the hon. Member for Ceredigion asked us to.
If and when there is a need to place DTO trainees in prison, policy guidelines will be in place to ensure that the transfer to prison happens only in appropriate cases, with due consideration to the requirements of the Human Rights Act 1998 and to meeting the needs of individual vulnerable people. I should emphasise that, unless detention in a young offenders institution is abolished and the age of adult imprisonment consequently reduced to 18, we have no intention of placing DTO trainees in adult establishments. The subsection is purely a contingency arrangement. With that explanation and commitment, made in Committee and Select Committee, the hon. Member for Ceredigion knows what we are trying to achieve and should be able to withdraw the amendment.