A letter sent by Justice Minister Dr Philip Lee MP to the chair of the Justice Select Committee, Bob Neill MP, was published on 14 March 2018. The letter updates last year’s government response to the Justice Committee’s Inquiry on young adult offenders.

It provides a very encouraging summary of current policy and delivery regarding young adults in the criminal justice system. It is the most comprehensive response to date from the government on this issue, and it is heartening that T2A is mentioned in several places. Below are some key highlights from the text:

“We accept the Justice Select Committee’s specific recommendations in relation to and acknowledging 18-25 year olds in the criminal justice system as a distinct group.

We accept that young men continue to mature into their mid-twenties, and this is informing practice in the following ways:

• A resource pack to promote maturity (with individuals): We are currently piloting a “resource pack” to support staff to identify and work with 18-25 year olds; the group identified as specifically needing to develop maturity by the JSC. The pilots are in four establishments for six months and we would look to make the resource pack available more widely to both custody and community sites. We know that the development of maturity is fluid and that older and younger men and women could benefit from the selected exercises and will therefore be aiming to extend the target group post pilot. This development has been presented to members of Transition to Adulthood Alliance.
• Assessments and screening for maturity (in groups of offenders): We have now published analysis of the maturity screening tool and the testing of its reliability and validity. We are incorporating this into our “Segmentation Tool”, to help prison and probation providers profile their populations. Better screening will help providers determine how many young adults under their care are likely to require services or interventions to promote maturation.
• Acquired brain injury: We are improving identification and support of brain injury through grant funding to the Disabilities Trust. This will pay for a pilot in four English prisons, a Welsh prison and a Welsh Approved Premises. It will develop and test how we understand and meet the needs of those with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This work includes staff awareness training in relation to brain injuries and training in the administration of a screening measure.
• Prosecution: Training in maturity is currently being delivered to CPS specialist youth prosecutors across England and Wales and all prosecutors were reminded in September that when weighing up whether a prosecution should be brought, age and maturity should be considered. Training for prosecutors includes a section on the importance of considering the ‘maturity’ of young adults (18-24 year olds), as part of the prosecutors’ review and decision-making process. More specifically, the face-to-face training allows prosecutors to consider and discuss the implications of maturity, including where it may be a relevant matter for cases involving young adults (18-24 year olds).
• Sentencing: ‘Age and/or lack of maturity’ is considered a mitigating factor when passing sentence on a number of offences. Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) are prepared by the Probation Service to help the court determine the most suitable sentence for the offender. PSRs for offenders 18 to 25 must now include a consideration of the offender’s maturity to inform sentencing decisions.
• A new National Young Offender Governance Board: Involves representatives of the NPS divisions in England and Wales and members of the Youth Justice Board. It is chaired by an National Probation Service divisional director. The board oversees seven strands of work in its delivery plan, including transitions (between youth and adult systems), courts and maturity assessments.
• Young adult courts: We maintain an interest in finding approaches in adult courts that are appropriate to young adults and have looked at the useful externally-funded (Barrow Cadbury Trust) feasibility studies in this space. Though these feasibility exercises have not gone onto being tested in practice, we have learned a great deal and may find opportunities to use this learning in the future.
• Young adults in prison: From April 2018, we will begin an exercise to look at how dual designated establishments are operating and identifying any good practice. This will be helped by the secondment of a specialist in young adults from a voluntary sector mental health charity (which is also a member of the Transition to Adulthood alliance).”

In addition, some further highlights from recent weeks:

• The National Police Chiefs’ Council is redefining ‘young people’ as up to age 25, and has produced a new strategy on policing 18-25 year olds;
• HM Inspectorate of Prisons has announced it will now inspect prisons’ management of young adults (defined for the first time as 18-25, rather than 18-20);
• Two thirds of Police and Crime Commissioners (30/42) have named young adults aged 18-25 as a priority group in their Police and Crime Plans, and several have developed specific young adult strategies;
• The majority of Community Rehabilitation Companies (private probation services) have developed strategies for managing 18-25 year olds as a distinct group. Most recently Interserve (which operates across 7 English regions), which is rolling out the T2A training pack ‘Taking account of maturity: A practice guide for probation professionals’.

Today, Revolving Doors Agency and Transition to Adulthood Alliance publish a new report, Spotlight on Young Adults. The report showcases some of the innovative work being undertaken by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) across the country to improve criminal justice responses for young adults (18-25), the most likely age group to come into contact with the police both as victims and as offenders.

David Lammy (Chair of The Lammy Review) has called for maturity to factor into the criminal justice decision making process. Pushing this further, The Justice Select Committee has called to extend statutory support provided to under 18’s, as they navigate the criminal justice system, to the 18-25 cohort. The Committee also pressed for legislative changes to recognise the developmental status of the 18-25 age group.

PCCs are in an important position to show leadership on this issue, cutting across the youth and adults systems with a key strategic and commissioning role. This report shines a light on a number of case studies that highlight how PCCs have delivered a distinct approach to the 18-25 cohort, including:

• Diversion from the Criminal Justice System: e.g. exploring opportunities to tailor out of court disposals more effectively for first time offences and ensuring mental health liaison and diversion services respond to the specific needs of this age group.

• Targeted support throughout the transition to adulthood: e.g. Leicestershire introducing a dedicated young adults project; and Gloucestershire and South Yorkshire commissioning young-adult specific support services.

• Extending existing youth services: including exploring how the principles of the youth offending team model can be applied to young adults, and developing opportunities to link young adults back into these teams, as piloted in South Wales.

• Engaging with young adults to harness the power of lived experience, in developing their strategies, many of these PCCs have sought to engage with young adults, including those with experience of offending. An approach demonstrated by Leicestershire’s Young Adults Project (YAP!) Shadow Board.

Debbie Pippard, Vice-Chair of the T2A Alliance said:

“T2A is pleased to see how PCCs are leading the way in delivering a strategic approach to young adults involved in the criminal justice system. Tailoring interventions to meet the distinct needs of 18-25 year olds is an effective way to allocate resources, reduce offending, and help young people grow out of crime”.

Article cross-posted via Katie Silver, Health reporter, BBC News

Adolescence now lasts from the ages of 10 to 24, although it used to be thought to end at 19, scientists say.

Young people continuing their education for longer, as well as delayed marriage and parenthood, has pushed back popular perceptions of when adulthood begins.

Changing the definition is vital to ensure laws stay appropriate, they write in an opinion piece in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

But another expert warns doing so risks “further infantilising young people”.

When puberty begins

Puberty is considered to start when the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus starts releasing a hormone that activates the body’s pituitary and gonadal glands.

This used to happen around the age of 14 but has dropped with improved health and nutrition in much of the developed world to around the age of 10.

As a consequence, in industrialised countries such as the UK the average age for a girl’s first menstruation has dropped by four years in the past 150 years.

Half of all females now have their period by 12 or 13 years of age.

When the body stops developing

There are also biological arguments for why the definition of adolescence should be extended, including that the body continues to develop.

For example, the brain continues to mature beyond the age of 20, working faster and more efficiently.

And many people’s wisdom teeth don’t come through until the age of 25.

Delaying life’s milestones

Young people are also getting married and having children later.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the average age for a man to enter their first marriage in 2013 was 32.5 years and 30.6 years for women across England and Wales. This represented an increase of almost eight years since 1973.

Lead author Prof Susan Sawyer, director of the centre for adolescent health at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, writes: “Although many adult legal privileges start at age 18 years, the adoption of adult roles and responsibilities generally occurs later.”

She says delayed partnering, parenting and economic independence means the “semi-dependency” that characterises adolescence has expanded.

Social policy

This social change, she says, needs to inform policy, such as by extending youth support services until the age of 25.

“Age definitions are always arbitrary”, she writes, but “our current definition of adolescence is overly restricted”.

“The ages of 10-24 years are a better fit with the development of adolescents nowadays.”

Prof Russell Viner, president-elect of the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health, said: “In the UK, the average age for leaving home is now around 25 years for both men and women.”

He supports extending the definition to cover adolescence up until the age of 24 and says a number of UK services already take this into account.

He said: “Statutory provision in England in terms of social care for care leavers and children with special educational needs now goes up to 24 years,” as does provision of services for people with cystic fibrosis.

Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in August (summarised in Appendix 1) indicate that the number of young adults aged 18-24 in prison or serving a community sentence has fallen by more than a third since 2011. The statistics also suggest that the proportion of young adults within the whole caseload has also dropped, by nearly 10%.

To inform its Transition to Adulthood (T2A) initiative and the T2A Alliance campaign, the Barrow Cadbury Trust would like to commission an analysis to understand the reasons for this decline.

We would like the final report to relate to the jurisdiction of England and Wales, and include data last 10 years. The analysis would be likely to cover the following issues (and potentially others):

• What has been the extent of the decline in the number of young adults subject to arrest, under probation supervision and in prison (remand and sentenced)?
• To what extent might other criminal justice factors have affected this decline – e.g. changes to police practices (e.g. arrest rates), changes to sentencing guidelines (e.g. the inclusion of ‘lack of maturity’ as a mitigating factor), or diversion schemes?
• To what extent might sentencing decisions have contributed to this decline (e.g. has there been a reduction in the use of community sentences or short prison sentences)?
• What impact might the fall in the number of children entering the youth justice system have on the decline in the number of young adults?
• What are the gender and race dimensions to this decline (and has there been any disproportionality by race or gender)?
• Was this decline been more significant for young adults than other age groups?
• Was there a decline in the number of young adults in the general population that may have had an impact on this decline?
• Is there any evidence of a similar decline internationally?

The budget available for this piece of work is up to £10,000, and is most likely to suit a university academic or consultancy based in the United Kingdom. The Ministry of Justice has indicated its support for the project and in facilitating access to data.

Please submit a proposal of up to two sides of A4, setting out:

• How you would approach this project;
• Your track record in delivering work of this kind (both in terms of the task and the focus on people in the criminal justice system) and;
• Brief details of the staff member(s) who would be involved.

Submissions should be sent to Max Rutherford, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at the Barrow Cadbury Trust by Friday 5^th January 2018 on [email protected]

A decision will be made by the end of January. We hope that the project would start in February 2018 and be completed within four months.

Appendix 1

The number of young adults aged 18-24 serving community sentences reduced by 40% in 5 years. In 2011, 54,262 young adults were serving either a community order or a suspended sentence order, accounting for 33% of all adults serving community sentences. In 2016, this dropped to 31,846, 25% of the total.

In prison, there was a 31% drop in number of young adults aged 18-24 in prison between 30 June 2011 and 30 June 2017. In 2011, 21,974 young adults aged 18-24 were in prison (26% of the total prison population), while in 2017 the number had reduced to 14,963 (17% of total).

These and other statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2017

A significant new research study by the Ministry of Justice firmly supports T2A’s long-standing campaign objective that criminal justice agencies need to take account of young adults’ maturity in service design and delivery. This was also a key recommendation of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee in its inquiry on Young Adult Offenders in 2016.

It summaries the government’s research in developing and validating a new screening tool for psychosocial maturity for adult men serving prison sentences.

“This study suggests that it is possible to screen for maturity in a meaningful way, using a tool derived from OASys items.

The fact that there appears to be a strong relationship between maturity, risk and proven reoffending outcomes underlines the need to take into account maturity in the management of men who have committed crime.

This tool could usefully be used to better understand and respond to the needs of this group, and to support decisions about the commissioning of interventions, and sentence planning for young adults.

Combining assessment of risk of reoffending with the assessment of maturity, could help to target interventions to those most in need, and most likely to benefit from, intervention.

Implementation plans need to consider the benefits of the information this tool could provide in responding to the needs of younger adults in prison, against the resource and training implications of use.”

Key findings

• A ten-item maturity screening tool was created from factor analysis of items from the Offender Assessment System (OASys). The tool was found to be valid and reliable.
• Scores on the OASys maturity screening tool were correlated significantly with age and with risk of reoffending.
• The OASys maturity screening tool improved the ability of a static risk assessment tool and age in predicting oneyear proven reoffending rates.
• Those who were less mature according to the OASys maturity screening tool were younger in age, and were a higher risk of proven reoffending than those who were more mature. Less mature individuals had higher rates of proven reoffending than were predicted by their OGRS3 scores. The reoffending rates of the more mature individuals were in line with those predicted by their OGRS3 scores.
• The OASys maturity screening tool has potential to inform the commissioning of appropriate services and interventions by identifying those who have lower psychosocial maturity.
• The relationship observed between maturity and proven reoffending suggests there would be value in incorporating assessment of maturity into the management of young adult men convicted of crime, so that issues relating to maturity can be appropriately addressed.

A distinct approach to young adults is tough on crime and a high-return investment, says Max Rutherford from Barrow Cadbury Trust

Three years ago, six projects set out to demonstrate the effectiveness of a ‘whole pathway’ approach to young adults involved in crime – from point of arrest to release from prison. Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) independent evaluation of this ‘T2A Pathway’, published today, tells the story of these projects from design to delivery during a time when local services faced unprecedented turmoil and austerity.

It highlights the extraordinary resilience, flexibility and skill of voluntary sector organisations in meeting the needs of society’s most vulnerable people, turning young lives around and pulling them back from the brink of a life of crime, self-harm, addiction and, for many, an early death.

A distinct approach to young adults that is tough on crime

What the T2A Pathway delivered was unequivocally “tough on crime”. There’s nothing soft about intervening to calm down a young man wielding a samurai sword in a park full of children. There’s nothing fluffy about coming to the aid of a brain-injured young man who, every day, sits naked on a bridge and threatens to throw himself off. It’s not a charitable nicety to secure a safe place to live for a teenage mother and her new-born child who are both at high risk of sexual and physical abuse.

Commissioning services for 16-25 year olds that enable them to address their behaviour and turn their lives around is not do-gooding – it’s a high-return investment. No other age group is more likely to desist from crime, and no other group of adults has as much life still ahead of them. All of the 414 young people supported by the projects were causing harm to their communities (three quarters already had criminal records) and even more harm to themselves.

The evaluation is further evidence of the unmatchable value to people with complex needs of relationship-based, intensive support. This doesn’t mean services that are either high-cost or slow – quite the opposite. Services were described as “quicker” and “tailor made”, in comparison to statutory provision.

Benefits to other agencies

Of course, the work of projects like these benefits criminal justice agencies – reducing offending, avoiding breach and increasing compliance – all big wins for the police, courts, probation and prisons. It saves money, reduces crime and, perhaps most persuasive, saves these agencies precious time. As a police borough commander put it to me in conversation, “these projects help us spend more time catching bad guys”.

Yet it’s a direct benefit to other agencies too – mental health services (many of which have raised their thresholds to unreachable heights for young people) won’t have to pick up the pieces of acute crises; social care and child protection services won’t have to take as many children into care.

Gender and race

Nearly a third of the young adults supported by the projects were female, and one project was women-only. These teenage and young adult women had even more needs than the young men: 63% had experienced abuse, rape or domestic violence, and 15% had been involved in sex work. The evaluation reports great additional benefit from a gender-specific approach within the young adult focus.

A third of the young adults were BAME, with a higher rate in the prison-based projects than the community-based projects. A concern arising from the evaluation is disproportionately low levels of referral of young BAME men, in particular, by statutory agencies to voluntary sector services -, raising questions about the ability to meet the cultural, faith and ethnicity needs of this group -compared to referrals of young white men.

Sustainability

The most effective projects shared some common features in their structure and design, such as having a clearly defined distinct offer for young adults, strong partnerships in place from the beginning and a referral criteria and process that was co-designed by the project team and the referring agencies.

Sustainability of the projects beyond the pilot phase was universally tough at a time of continually shrinking budgets. Two projects were incorporated into the delivery model of a wider contract by the lead charity, two came to an end, and two secured further funding to carry on as they were. A reconviction study and economic analysis from MMU will conclude later this year, and be published in early 2018.

Wider impact

As a collective, T2A Pathway projects contributed evidence to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee’s inquiry on Young Adult Offenders, which concluded in 2016 that there is “overwhelming evidence” in support of a distinct approach to young adults throughout the criminal justice system. Professionals and young people from the projects spoke at national conferences and local events alongside politicians, Police and Crime Commissioners and senior officials. The projects took part in an array of pioneering research projects, including ones on brain injury, bereavement and race equality.

The projects’ legacy is still emerging, but it is clear they have already delivered immense impact, not only on the lives of hundreds of young people and their communities, but also on the people who work with them, and on those who make the policies.

This blog was written by Max Rutherford, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at the Barrow Cadbury Trust in response to the Final Process Evaluation report of the T2A Pathway (which can be read here). For more information email Max at [email protected]

The final process evaluation of the T2A Pathway initiative is published today. The report, from the Policy, Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) at Manchester Metropolitan University, highlights the benefits of a distinct approach to young adults involved in crime throughout the criminal justice process. It also identifies the important role, skill and resilience of the voluntary sector in supporting young people with complex needs at a time of unprecedented reform and budget constraint.

The T2A Pathway initiative, 6 projects led by charities in partnership with statutory services, delivered services to 16-25 year olds across sites in England between 2014-2017. The projects worked with young adults at the point of arrest, pre-court, in prison and on release. Each project had a specialist focus, such as family engagement, mental health treatment and drug abuse.

The projects worked with 414 young people over three years:

• On average the young adults had four ‘criminogenic needs’ (factors that directly contributed to criminal behaviour);
• Three quarters already had criminal records;
• 30% were young women, most of whom had experienced abuse, rape or domestic violence;
• 15% were of ethnicities other than white British

The report found that the T2A Pathway projects:

• Offered a flexible, intensive, relationship-based intervention to young people with highly complex and urgent needs;
• Were particularly effective from the start where they had multi-agency support and referral arrangements that had been jointly designed;
• Helped to change the culture of statutory partners, successfully embedding a young adult focus into mainstream practice;
• Influenced national policy (such as the House of Commons Justice Select Committee’s inquiry on Young Adult Offenders).

Kevin Wong one of the authors of the report, Associate Director of the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) from Manchester Metropolitan University said:

“The evaluation has identified valuable lessons for commissioners and service providers in: designing, setting up and implementing services for young adults with complex needs.  Chief amongst these being: A responsive commissioning and programme management process and providing the space and time for the services find the best way to work with young adults with  complex needs”

Sara Llewellin, CEO of the Barrow Cadbury Trust (which commissioned the research and the T2A Pathway initiative) said:

“These projects fulfilled the brief to demonstrate how a ‘whole pathway’ approach to young adults involved in crime can work to deliver an effective approach throughout the criminal justice system. The skill and dedication of each charity’s professional staff, working with statutory partners, helped turn around the lives of so many young people, and contributed to the evidence base that the Justice Committee called “irrefutable”. We are pleased that several of the project models have already become part of mainstream practice. The T2A Pathway legacy will be impactful and long-lasting change, both for many hundreds of individuals and the system as a whole.”

The report is based on 142 interviews with professionals (103) and young people (39) with direct involvement in the projects. Economic and reconviction analyses will be published in early 2018.

The report is available to download here

A blog about the evaluation report by Max Rutherford, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at the Barrow Cadbury Trust can be read here.

T2A Pathway projects: Main areas of focus and location map

New statistics published by the Ministry of Justice have revealed that the number of young adults aged 18-24 in prison or serving a community sentences has fallen by more than a third since 2011. Their proportion as a share of the total caseload has also dropped by nearly 10%.

The number of young adults aged 18-24 serving community sentences is down by 40% in 5 years. In 2011, 54,262 young adults were serving either a community order or a suspended sentence order, accounting for 33% of all adults serving community sentences. In 2016, this had dropped to 31,846, 25% of the total.

In prison, the downward trend has been similarly dramatic. There was a 31% drop in number of young adults aged 18-24 in prison between 30 June 2011 and 30 June 2017. In 2011, 21,974 young adults aged 18-24 were in prison (26% of the total prison population), while in 2017 the number had reduced to 14,963 (17% of total).

Last year, the Justice Select Committee called upon the government to pursue a distinct approach for all young adults throughout the criminal justice process. David Lammy’s Report last week called on the government to extend the youth justice system beyond 18. While these structural and legislative changes are still some way off, the significant progress made in recent years to divert young adults away from the acute end of the criminal justice system is clear to see.

All of these statistics (published August 2017), and many more, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2017

Today, HM Inspectorate of Prisons published its report on a young adult prison, HMYOI Aylesbury. A summary of the findings are below.

1. YOI Aylesbury holds 440 of the longest sentenced 18-20 year olds the English prison system, including young adults serving life sentences
2. Nearly two-thirds of the young people reported feeling unsafe, and there were high levels of sometimes very serious violence
3. The Inspectorate reports “a combination of volatile and frustrated young people locked up for long periods with no activity”
4. There were “too few staff and many who were inexperienced” and that “good staff were overwhelmed with work and unable to focus”
5. Staff told HMIP:“Aylesbury will always be a violent place”. HMIP states “fatalism about unacceptable levels of violence needed to change”
6. During the working day 2 out of 5 young men were locked in their cells and a quarter of prisoners were unemployed
7. HMIP report that the young adults in this prison get only 30 minutes a day exercise in the open air
8. A third of young men there are waiting for a transfer to the adult estate where they will continue their long prison sentences elsewhere
9. Mechanisms of accountability for the very high use of force had effectively broken down, and management oversight was very poor
10. HMIP found that hundreds of officers’ accounts of use of force, which should have been completed immediately, had not been done at all
11. Since 2015 there were improvements in measures on ‘respect’. Health care and chaplaincy staff were particularly effective
12. Inspectors found young men behaved well when they could attend workshops &  education, where they were able to engage in purposeful work
13. Despite many problems HMIP found areas of considerable potential. Most staff appeared remarkably resilient & want to improve the prison
14. There was some excellent innovation eg coffee roasting & retail shop, giving prisoners valuable skills in realistic work environments
15. Aylesbury YOI continued to provide outstanding support to some of the most vulnerable and troubled young men in the prison estate
16. The full HMIP report on HMYOI Aylesbury can be found at: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/

‘Race and the Criminal Justice System: Hearing from Young Adults’ is the first report from the T2A Young Adult Advisory Group and Leaders Unlocked.  The T2A Young Adult Advisory Group is an innovative project enabling young adults with personal experience of the criminal justice system, such as a personal or family experience or engagement with the police, to have a national voice on policy.

In their first year, the group chose race and the criminal justice system as their first priority because it tied in with a number of current national developments, such as the Lammy Review and the Young Review. The report details the Advisory Group’s findings from peer-to-peer research carried out with 90 young adults across the country – including peer interviews in prisons, focus groups with Youth Offending Teams, homeless organisations and community groups.

The Group’s aims were to:
•Understand whether, and how, participants feel their racial, ethnic and religious identity affected these experiences.
•Explore participants’ views on trust in the CJS.
•Involve participants in the development of solutions for policy makers.
•Gather personal testimonies from BAME (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) young adults of their experiences of policing and criminal justice.