Juvenile Justice System

Part of Private Members’ Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 11:45 am on 19 May 2009.

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Photo of Stephen Farry Stephen Farry Alliance 11:45, 19 May 2009

The Alliance Party welcomes the debate and has no difficulty in supporting the motion. The motion is competent; there are plenty of precedents for the House’s debating subjects that are not its immediate responsibility. Even beyond that, issues that relate to offending in Northern Ireland require a joined-up response from government agencies, both devolved and non-devolved.

The Department of Education and its Youth Service have a clear responsibility to deal with offending through how they interact with young people. The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Department for Social Development, which is responsible for housing, also have cross-cutting responsibilities in that area. It is not simply a criminal justice issue but one that affects a wide range of Departments and us all. That is why it is important that the Executive respond, and I welcome the presence of junior Minister Kelly in the Chamber.

Thus far, I have found much of the debate to be frustrating, owing to some of the comments that Members have made and tangents that they have followed. The motion does not ask the House to endorse all the recommendations in the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s report; it asks that we take on board the report and respond to it. The motion is pitched at a wholly appropriate level.

Members have become distracted by talking about the age of criminal responsibility. I have no appetite for changing that. That is not on the agenda; it is a large red herring. The issue is not so much the age of criminal responsibility — we cannot run away from the fact that young people must be held to account when they commit offences — as what happens when young people are held to account for offences and the state’s approach, whether it be custodial sentencing or something else, such as the use of youth conferencing facilities.

It is important that we avoid making generalisations when talking about young people. Young people and their contribution to crime are feared. Not all young people are a threat. Sometimes, young people’s actions can be wrongly perceived as a threat when they are simply behaving as young people do and, in many respects, finding themselves. Equally, it is important to bear in mind that young people are the most likely victims of crime, so the issue cuts both ways.

The focus must be on rehabilitating rather than punishing young people. We want to avoid a situation in which young people needlessly get criminal records that compromise their future life opportunities and that entail a cost to society as a whole. We can reflect on the contributions made to society by people in many respectable walks of life who got into trouble when they were young. We can point to many famous cases.

Members rightly talked about the levels of reoffending among young people and the need to manage as effectively as possible the process of dealing with them. Aspects of what we do in Northern Ireland are world-class, and it is important to highlight that. The Youth Justice Agency is a truly pioneering agency that is setting the pace. Youth conferencing is very successful. My constituency office borders the Youth Justice Agency’s community services office in Bangor, and I am fully aware of the work that people such as Phelim Breen and his team do. Restorative techniques can make a difference to young people.

Likewise, I have concerns about the police’s ability to issue cautions. Sometimes, cautions can be the most effective response to crime, but the current protective relationship that the police have with the PPS means that their flexibility to respond is not as clear-cut as it should be. In some cases, there is no flexibility at all, and that represents a missed opportunity.

The bottom line is that, in some cases, people need to be taken into custody, and we should not run away from that fact. The simple governing motivation behind that is the protection of society, and we have no choice. My party’s view is that people under 18 years of age should be sent, by default, to Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre. I have visited both Woodlands and Hydebank Wood young offenders centre, which have very different regimes. The Youth Justice Agency governs one, and the Northern Ireland Prison Service governs the other. I am impressed by what I have seen at the Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre, where there is a more appropriate regime for young people who, unfortunately, have to be placed in custody.

This is an important debate, and it should lead to other debates in the Chamber. Responsibility for this matter lies not only with the justice system, but across all Departments.