Clause 12
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
11:15 am
David Heath (Shadow Secretary of State for Justice & Lord Chancellor, Ministry of Justice; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 137, in clause 12, page 8, line 34, after ‘below,’, insert
‘if the offender is over the age of 18 years,’.
Clause 12 deals with changes in the procedures for indeterminate sentences and for determining the tariff. My amendment was suggested by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice to limit changes to the determination of tariff to individuals over 18. That would mean, of course, that people below that age would be subject to the current arrangements. This issue is part of the larger question of whether we deal with all offenders, whatever their age, in the same way. It has been a long-standing principle in our legal system that we treat children differently from adults, and indeed we are party to various international obligations to treat children and young people differently from adults.
There is, however, a particular problem with indeterminate sentences. Children and young people are different from adults. First, there are developmental changes— children grow up while in custody and may be very different people within a relatively short period of time. Secondly, a young person’s perception of their future will differ from that of somebody who has been in and out of the prison system, is of more mature years and can take a more phlegmatic view of things.
There is a long established legal principle, set out in R v. Storey 1984, that when a child is given a sentence of long-term detention they should serve a period of time that enables them to see
“light at the end of the tunnel: the sentencer should take care to select a duration on which the offender can fix his eye with a view to emerging in the foreseeable future.”
There is a requirement, too, under article 37(b) of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which states:
“No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”.
It is that last phrase which is the operative term.
I shall not press the amendment to a Division, as it is simply intended to probe the Minister’s views on the matter, but tariffs for indeterminate sentences imposed on a child should be no longer than what would be served under a determinate custodial penalty for the same offence. Given what I said about children’s development and the process of maturity, there may be a strong case for reviewing the threat that the young person poses to society at an earlier stage. There is no risk involved, if risk assessments are done properly and the Parole Board does its work when the young person is eligible for release, in reducing the sentence available to a limited period, because at that point there is an assessment of whether the young person represents a threat to society. If they do, they will not be released. That seems entirely right.
My argument is very simple. We recognise that the judicial system should treat young people differently from adults. There is an argument for a clear and determinate length of sentence for young people that should be commensurate with the offence, rather than an indeterminate sentence of the sort envisaged under the clause. I should be grateful for the Minister’s comments.