Prosecution

T2A wishes to see training for prosecutors in how to identify and judge maturity of a young adult who is alleged to have committed an offence, when looking at factors relating to culpability in prosecution decisions. Training on maturity should be made available to defence lawyers. As part of the decision making process when charging and prosecuting young adults, deferring the prosecution should be considered if it will enable support services to work with the young adult.

T2A recommends the use of deferred prosecutions for young adults who have committed low level offences. This was recommended by David Lammy MP in his 2017 review of how to tackle disproportionality of outcomes for Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. Deferred prosecution is where someone accused of committing an eligible crime is given an opportunity to complete certain conditions (for example, rehabilitative activity, reparation to the victim and/or unpaid work) instead of being prosecuted, without needing to admit guilt.