The 2016 Criminal Justice Alliance Awards will give prizes of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 to three organisations or individuals who have contributed materially to improving outcomes across the criminal justice pathway, from policing to prisons and probation, in the last 12 months.  The Awards, supported for the second year by the Hadley Trust, acknowledge a ‘marked contribution to effectiveness, fairness or new models of delivery’.

Winners will be selected by a judging panel including crossbench peer Baroness Young of Hornsey, veteran legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg, Director of Anawim Joy Doal and Mark Johnson, founder and Chief Executive of User Voice.  The Awards will be presented at a ceremony in central London on 17 November.  A further award will also be given for the first time to a print, online or broadcast journalist (or journalists) who has made a notable contribution to a better understanding of criminal justice in the last 12 months.

Details of how to enter the CJA Awards can be found on the CJA website.

Entries are open until Friday 16 September 2016.

Young women in prison are more likely to suffer from a toxic mix of fear and boredom than older women, according to new research published today.

Prisons are failing to address the distinct needs of young women aged 18-24, including education and mental health needs, in the face of evidence that they should be treated differently to older women in custody. In the youth estate, teenage girls are viewed as having such specific needs that not one girl under 18 is held in a young offender institution, making the transition across to the women’s estate when they turn 18 particularly stark and risky.

Yet new research for the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance has found that all women over 18 are treated the same and mixed together. This is in contrast to young men, for whom there is separate legislation and distinct young adult establishments.

Despite some efforts made in individual institutions to meet the needs of this age group, the report finds that prison regimes do not sufficiently follow the Prison Service Order to provide younger women prisoners more supervision and activities. Recent inspection reports of women’s prisons have consistently highlighted a lack of strategy and service for young adults, with not one young women-specific accredited programmes available in the estate. A lack of progress in prison education was highlighted as a particular concern. The report calls for a strengthening of existing guidance and staff recruitment to enable effective, distinct management of young adult women in prison, and the introduction of a presumption against short prison sentences for non-violent crimes.

More than half of the 550 young adult women in prison are on remand or serving short sentences of less than 6 months, with the vast majority convicted of non-violent crimes – half are convicted of theft or handling stolen goods. The case for community alternatives for this group is all the more strong given that around a quarter of young adult women in prison are mothers, and their children are likely to be younger than older women in prison.

18-24 year olds account for around 16% of women in prison, a proportion that has declined in recent years. However, HM Inspectorate of Prisons noted in its 2015 Annual Report that “the reduction of young adults over recent years has been significant and is to be welcomed. However, those who remain are some of the most vulnerable, troubled young adults and have complex needs”. It is likely that half will have more recently been in statutory care, and the victim of more recent traumas compared to older women who are likely to have experienced these events longer ago. Young women are also particularly vulnerable to exploitation by other prisoners (both other young adults and older women).

Young women report a poorer experience of prison than older women, especially in their first nights. Ongoing neurological and hormonal development of young women in prison increases the susceptibility to peer pressure, being unable to cope with prison life and mental illness. Young adult women are more likely to self-harm, and the most common age of self-inflicted deaths of women in prison was 20 years old and over a fifth (21%) of deaths were of those aged between 18 and 21.

Rob Allen, the report’s author, said: “Despite a growing and overdue recognition by criminal justice services that young people do not magically achieve adult maturity on their 18^th birthday, there’s an important group of young adults whose needs have not yet fully been analysed let alone met- young women.  Whether it’s because numbers are small or a sense that their characteristics differ little from those of older women, recent initiatives have neglected to consider how best young females should be managed when they come into conflict with the law. A distinct approach to young adult women is likely to give them the best chance of growing out of crime and leading happy, healthy and productive lives.”  

Download the report here

The Justice Committee Inquiry on Restorative Justice has now published T2A’s evidence which you can read here.

The Centre for Justice Innovation have today launched a call for expressions of interest from areas wanting to run innovative new criminal courts that will focus on 18-25 year olds.

Based on CJI’s feasibility study for T2A in 2015, these courts will test an adapted approach with young adults. CJI is looking for areas that recognise the distinct needs of young adults, and where new approaches are already being tested or considered at other stages of the justice system. CJI will work with sites for up to four years to: understand current needs and responses; pilot evidence-led adaptations; and evaluate the impact.

This is an opportunity for areas to receive free support and become part of a movement of court innovators testing new approaches in response to the variety of people who use our courts. It is also a chance to be at the forefront of the implementation phase of the T2A agenda. Most importantly, it is a chance for courts to take an active role in using their authority as an opportunity to reduce crime and prevent the return of those who come before them.

Full details of the ‘Offer and Expectation’ can be found here.

To submit an expression of interest, please read the materials here.

This initiative is funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust.

T2A Alliance is disappointed by the findings of an HM Inspectorate of Probation report Transition Arrangements: a follow-up inspection published today.  The report finds that the youth to adult justice service transition arrangements for 18 year olds on probation have deteriorated since the last inspection in 2012.  This is despite the availability of guidance and instances of good practice, which demonstrate how transitions could and should be handled.

This finding gives further urgency to the need to reform the way the criminal justice system responds to distinct needs of young adults.  Lord Harris’ report of the Independent Review into self-inflicted Deaths in NOMS Custody of 18-24 year olds published in July 2015 highlighted the vital importance of good transition in ensuring positive outcomes for vulnerable young adults. This was backed up by the Government’s response which also endorsed the value of recognising the distinct needs of young adults in the criminal justice system.

However, despite HM Inspector of Probation highlighting many areas which need improving in the transition process, it is encouraging that services in York, one of the areas highlighted as demonstrating good practice, were recommended along with T2A’s Practice Guide on Maturity and it’s Going for Gold report, which describe how services can be developed to improve outcomes for young adults.

With significant cuts to policing budgets in recent years, police leaders have increasingly needed to think creatively about how they can move ‘upstream’ to prevent crime and reduce demand. The Revolving Doors Agency and the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A) have published a briefing highlighting promising practice from across the country as police and crime commissioners (PCCs) try to meet this challenge.

A significant amount of police time is spent responding to vulnerable people who have fallen through the gaps of community and health services. For example:

• 84% of all control room calls relate to ‘non-crime incidents’, often linked to issues of vulnerability, public protection and safeguarding
• Mental health-related incidents account for an estimated 20-40% of police time
• Relatively small numbers of individuals with multiple and complex needs place high levels of repeat demand on the police, both as repeat offenders and victims of crime.

Partnership working is crucial to addressing these challenges. However, too often local services are not structured to work in a preventative way, focusing on one problem at a time, and only responding to issues once they have escalated rather than intervening at an early stage.

With a responsibility to reduce crime and protect police budgets, PCCs have an interest in showing leadership locally on this agenda.

This briefing is the fourth in a series of ‘PCC spotlights’ highlighting examples of promising practice among PCCs on challenging partnership issues.

Read the full briefing here.

Young adults (age 18-25) make up less than 10% of the population, but represent roughly a third of people sentenced in criminal courts each year.

In a new report, ‘Young adults in court: developing a tailored approach’, Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) outline a number of feasible adaptations to standard court practice for young adults. These include measures such as use of simplified language to aid participants’ understanding, taking steps to ensure the process is understood, encouraging family participation, and adapting the courtroom environment to make it more conducive to engagement.

Taken together, CJI argue that these adaptations could increase perceptions of procedural fairness and improve rehabilitation for this distinct population. With the right interventions, which take into account growing evidence around developmental maturity and age-specific needs, young adults are far more likely to grow out of crime.

The report says that there is clear evidence that how decisions in court are made and how the process feels to participants  can be as important as the sentence itself to young people’s perceptions.

Many of the changes outlined in the report are relatively modest. And much of the practice recommended already exists, at least in aspiration, in our youth courts.

In the course of research for the report, the researchers spoke with many court stakeholders who recognised a need to develop a tailored approach for young adults, and who were enthusiastic about delivering adapted practice.  The Lord Chancellor has recently lent his support to the concept of specialist “problem-solving” courts which would play a more active role in the process of rehabilitation.

T2A welcomes much, but not all, of the government’s response to the Harris Review, which has been published today.

T2A is particularly encouraged by the government’s recognition of the distinct needs of young adults aged 18-24 in the criminal justice system (p. 9), and its strong endorsement of the importance of taking account of maturity in sentencing, service design and delivery (p. 9-10).

Evidence from neuroscience and psychology shows that all young adults aged 18-24 require a distinct approach within the criminal justice system. T2A notes that the decision on the future management of young adults in custody will be decided as part of the wider prison estate reform programme, and T2A urges the government to retain and extend the age remit of a distinct provision for young adults.

Courts and probation

Significantly, the government has announced that, from early 2016, all 18-24 year olds will be subject to mandatory maturity assessments prior to sentencing and that “Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) completed on 18-24 year old offenders must include considerations of maturity” (p. 9) – a long-standing T2A policy proposal. T2A will soon publish an evaluation of the impact of its Practice Guide for probation professionals ‘Taking Account of Maturity’. To date, 12,000 copies of this guide have been requested by probation areas, and the evaluation has examined how it has been used to take account of maturity pre-sentence and inform sentencing decisions. T2A hopes that this guide will provide the basis for the government’s proposals on mandatory maturity assessments in PSRs. T2A is encouraged by the commitment to explore better judicial training and information on the vulnerabilities of young people.

T2A supports the government’s view (p. 8) that “What is widely known and accepted is that young adults, particularly males, are still maturing until the age of 25”. Today, T2A and the Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) have published a feasibility study for the creation of dedicated criminal courts for young adults. In partnership with CJI, T2A is planning to develop a national network of young adult court pilots in 2016. Since 2011, maturity has been included as a factor for consideration in adult sentencing guidelines and is specified as a culpability factor in prosecution guidance. While the government has rejected the recommendation for a statutory recognition of maturity in legislation, T2A hopes that the specific needs of young adults will be considered as part of any forthcoming review of sentencing.

T2A welcomes the strong commitment by the government to police and court liaison and diversion for people with complex needs, including mental health problems and learning disabilities. T2A hopes that these services will take account of the distinct needs of young adults, and also the high levels of brain injury among young people in contact with the criminal justice system.

Custody

T2A notes that the previous government’s proposal from 2013 to abolish the sentence of Detention in a Young Offender Institution (DYOI) (which had been paused pending the Harris Review and which T2A and others firmly opposed) will now be considered alongside the government’s wider prison strategy (to be announced in 2016) (p. 10). T2A urges the government to retain a distinct approach to young adults in custody, and to extend the current distinct provision afforded by DYOI legislation from 18-20 to 18-24 year olds. HM Inspectorate of Prisons this year reported that young adults have the worst outcomes for purposeful activity in prisons. It is disappointing that the government has not made a specific commitment to improving regimes for young adults in today’s response, and we hope that they will do so as part of its wider prison reforms in 2016. While we welcome the appointment of a deputy director of custody for young adults aged 18-20, we urge the government to consider again the recommendation that a distinct unit is established in the Ministry of Justice that is responsible for young adults aged 18-24.

It is positive that the government will, in 2016, reissue the transitions protocol for the transfer of 18 year olds from youth to adult custody (p. 13). This transition is a critical time in the safety and wellbeing of young adults. T2A believes that this transition is most likely to be effective when a transfer from youth custody establishments is to specialist young adult establishment. T2A is encouraged by the commitment to ensure that families are a central component to the care and management of young people in custody. One of the current T2A Pathway projects, led by PACT, is demonstrating how this can work effectively in practice.

Distinct group of young adults

T2A is pleased that the over-representation of BAME men in the criminal justice system is recognised, and that the government is committed to supporting the work of the Baroness Young’s 2014 Review (p. 11). T2A will soon publish reports on the distinct experiences of young BAME men and young Muslim men.

T2A welcomes the government’s commitment to monitor and improve the treatment of care leavers in contact with the criminal justice system (p. 12). T2A and the Care Leavers’ Association are working together to deliver a series of local responses to this group across England, and T2A will support Lord Laming’s Review of young people in care which reports in 2016.

T2A agrees with the government that the needs of young adult women are distinct from young adult men, but disagrees that young adult women’s needs are sufficiently similar to older adult women that they do not require a distinct approach (p. 10). A new report by T2A on the distinct needs of young adult women in prison will be published in January 2016.

Next steps

T2A looks forward to working with the Ministry of Justice as it develops its plans for implementing the improvements announced today in taking account of maturity of young adults pre-sentence. T2A awaits the outcome of the government’s reviews youth justice, education in prisons and forthcoming plans for sentencing and prison reform, and hope that all of these will take account of young adults as a distinct group.

T2A was pleased to submit evidence in September to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee Inquiry on Young Adult Offenders. When the Committee reports, this will present an further important opportunity to improve the management and effective response to young adults throughout the criminal justice system.

Download a PDF of the T2A response

Disclaimer

This T2A response reflects published T2A policy positions and T2A’s submission of evidence to the Harris Review. It does not necessarily reflect the views of all individual T2A Alliance members and some members will produce their own responses. It should also be noted that this response focuses on the sections of the Harris Review and the government’s response that relate particularly to young adults.

T2A has responded to the government’s recent prison education review.

Read our response here.

In a significant development for the young adult agenda, the Ministry of Justice has announced that all young adults will receive mandatory maturity assessments as part of Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) to inform sentencing decisions. This has been a key T2A policy position for a number of years. 

In its submission to the Justice Select Committee Inquiry on Young Adult Offenders, the Ministry of Justice states that:

“We recognise the level of maturity in respect of young adults varies compared to older adults, as does their life experience…

Currently maturity assessments are not mandatory in a pre-sentence report (PSR), except where the young adult has drug or alcohol problems which are directly linked to the offence. PSR writers are trained in completing assessments including consideration of maturity. 

There is published guidance[15] for them to follow and Probation Instruction (PI 05/2011) is to be re-issued later this year and will make maturity assessments mandatory in respect of every young adult offender (aged 18-24).

The PI will also require PSR writers to liaise with the Youth Offender Service to ensure that information on previous supervision can be taken into account by the court.” (Extract from Sections 1 and 39, emphasis added)

Ministry of Justice’s reference above to published guidance on maturity assessments is in fact to T2A’s own ‘Taking Account of Maturity: A Practice Guide for Probation Practitioners’, developed by the University of Birmingham. This T2A guidance was made available at no charge to probation services since publication in 2013, and to date more than 13,000 copies have been disseminated.

T2A will look at the detail behind this announcement, and will seek to ensure that this positive development is implemented as effectively as possible.