Schedule 11
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
1:45 pm
David Hanson (Minister of State, Ministry of Justice; Delyn, Labour)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead for eventually moving the amendment, to which he added his name in a late fashion. The debate has been useful. The principle of youth conditional cautions is to have, as my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate have said, a pre-court disposal to ensure that we examine behaviour and look at reparation, rehabilitation and punishment.
I have to say to my hon. Friend that I do not anticipate that all youth conditional cautions will include elements of punishment as well as rehabilitation or reparation, but they could do. There are two reasons why I do not want a situation in which the youth conditional caution does not include a potential element of punishment. First, it is important that the proposed pre-court disposal gives an element of confidence to members of the community who, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate mentioned earlier, are the potential victims of the person receiving the youth conditional caution. Within that element of confidence there must also be the potential for an element of punishment.
I will give two practical examples. Suppose an individual steals something from a shop. The goods are recovered, and a youth conditional caution is considered an appropriate form of order against the individual, because of the nature of their behaviour to date, and as a way of having another pre-court disposal forum. The goods are recovered and the individual is found guilty of shoplifting. The youth conditional caution should contain a potential element of punishment—courses or reparation—as well as rehabilitation. Punishment might well be central to the process.
I will give another example. Suppose an individual draws some graffiti on a wall of a building, and writes their name across it. By the time they face the youth conditional caution, the owner of the property has removed the graffiti. We therefore cannot have reparation because the graffiti has been removed. We could have rehabilitation, but there would also be an element of punishment if the pre-court disposal ordered the individual to undertake the removal of other graffiti in another part of town, as punishment for the actions that gave them the youth conditional caution on that day. A number of circumstances within that show that the element of punishment is not draconian, but it is an option within the youth conditional caution to give confidence to the community and to ensure that victims feel that punishment is part of the response. However, it would not be used in every case, and I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend from the point of view of his amendment.
From my perspective, the purpose of the youth conditional caution is, as we discussed earlier, to ensure that we have an intervention that allows the young person to face the consequences of their action. It will allow them to undertake some form of rehabilitation, and hopefully, it will allow them to make some reparation to the victim. If necessary, it would also provide an element of punishment for the young person, as part of the desired effect of the youth conditional caution is to ensure that that person does not appear in court at a later date for more serious crimes.