Part of 3. Questions to the Counsel General – in the Senedd at 3:09 pm on 23 April 2024.
Jenny Rathbone
Labour
3:09,
23 April 2024
Obviously, this sits absolutely on the jagged edge of criminal justice, with criminal justice not being devolved, but I'm very glad to hear that you're working so closely, and you continue to do so, on this really important issue. I'd like to applaud this blueprint for reducing massively the numbers of children who are actually sent into offender institutions, because this normally actually exacerbates the problem, partly because of their young age and their impressionability, and there’s a recruitment into much deeper levels of criminality.
It’s 12 months since the Equality and Social Justice Committee published our report, '60 per cent—Giving them a voice' on speech, language and communications difficulties experienced by the youth justice system, and after the youth justice summit convened on 24 January by the former Minister for Social Justice, where Neath Port Talbot was lauded for the excellence of its service, it isn’t 60 per cent, it’s more like 80 per cent, if Neath Port Talbot is to be believed, because they are the blueprint for the services we want across Wales. What our report was asking for was an increase in the number of speech, language and communications therapists in our youth justice services because 80 per cent, four in five, of these young people simply don’t understand what the court is telling them and probably never understood what their teacher was telling them, either. So, it has to be a really important service to ensure that young people are listened to and that we are putting in place the right service for that individual.
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