Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420
- 439)
TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY 1998
MR PAUL
CAVADINO, PROFESSOR
ANDREW RUTHERFORD
AND MR
ROB ALLEN
420. What is the difference between the
first category of places you have just mentioned and the ones
that already existed?
(Mr Cavadino) Local authority secure accommodation
is part of the child care system but a secure part of the child
care system.
421. That is dealing with children of any
age, is it?
(Mr Allen) It deals with a range of youngsters.
(Mr Cavadino) It deals with the youth court age range.
So, for example, younger people who are remanded by the courts
to local authority accommodation can, if they fit various criteria,
be held in secure accommodation. You will be aware, of course,
that some youngsters have been very persistent offenders, have
offended a great deal on bail, and frequently there has been an
outcry because a particular youngster or group were not held in
secure accommodation. Often the problem has not been that there
was a lack of powers in law or that the courts and the police
and social services disagreed about the need for secure accommodation,
but that they could not find a secure place, and the building
of more local authority secure accommodation is intended partly
to meet that gap and partly to enable youngsters who are remanded
to the prison system to be held instead in secure units.
422. Of course. When were these extra local
authority places first announced?
(Mr Cavadino) In 1991 at the time the Criminal Justice
Act 1991 was a Bill going through Parliament.
423. And are you saying they are all now
in place?
(Mr Cavadino) 160 of the 170 places have been provided.
424. And what is this second category that
you were talking about a moment ago?
(Mr Cavadino) The second category is the secure training
order. That was a new sentence that was contained in the 1994
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which enables the courts
as a sentence to detain 12- to 14-year-olds. Those of 15 and upwards
can be sentenced to detention in a young offender institution.
That is not yet in force but the first of those centres is due
to open in April.
425. How many places are to be provided?
(Mr Cavadino) If the present Government sticks to
the precise plans which the previous Government had, the plan
is for five such centres with 40 places in each, so a total of
200.
426. That is the initiative that I think
I have heard about every year for the last several years. You
are now saying it is coming to fruition?
(Mr Cavadino) It was in the Criminal Justice—
(Mr Allen) It was first announced in February 1992
by Kenneth Clarke, who was then Home Secretary.
(Professor Rutherford) 1993.
427. Will that make a difference, in your
view?
(Mr Cavadino) I do not regard the secure training
order itself as a sensible sentence. I would have preferred to
meet the situation of young people who need secure accommodation
at that age, both before and after sentence, by the use of local
authority secure accommodation, so that they are not placed in
establishments far away from home, which makes it more difficult
to maintain family links. It will obviously make a difference
to the total stock of secure accommodation.
428. So to that extent it will make it easier
to place them in accommodation nearer home?
(Mr Cavadino) No, because if you are sentenced to
a secure training order you will have to go to one of the five
secure training centres. The present Government has, rightly,
undertaken a review of all secure and custodial accommodation
for young people with a view to rationalising the system so that
accommodation can be used in a more flexible way and I think that
is sensible.
429. Can I put to you—Professor Rutherford
did touch on this earlier—the specific measures proposed
in the Crime and Disorder Bill. Do we agree that reparation orders
are a good thing or not?
(Mr Allen) Yes.
(Professor Rutherford) Yes, I think we can say that.
430. Parenting orders?
(Professor Rutherford) Yes. You have to be a little
careful, I think, in rushing down this path of other people getting
caught up. One of the disturbing characteristics of the Bill to
watch when it comes before you is the way in which civil orders
are now being used, as Professor Ashworth of Oxford says, as a
sort of Trojan horse into the criminal law. You see it with the
antisocial behaviour order. There is a problem with antisocial
behaviour, that it is an innovative and dangerous path, I think,
as the Bill is currently drafted, where no criminal offence has
to be proved, simply a civil matter, that any breach of that immediately
becomes an either way indictable offence with a maximum of five
years' imprisonment, and I think it is a thread that runs right
through the Bill. You see it with parenting orders, you see it
with other civil orders that are being introduced, which will,
I think, draw people into the criminal justice process in a very
unfortunate way. That is not to say that there are not important
steps to take with parents, but whether this is the right approach
is something that needs to be thought about carefully.
431. What steps would you take with parents?
(Professor Rutherford) I think again it is a question
of offering parents support. Many parents want support in a situation
like that. Probably most people in this room are parents and have
gone through situations with children where support is needed.
It is a question of how that can be best provided. For example,
the Probation Service is under statute now to use parts of its
revenue income for work involving voluntary organisations. So
it is able to connect with a whole range of services that they
themselves may not be able directly to provide. This might be
one of those instances.
(Mr Allen) We would say there is substantial scope
for expanding parent training and parent classes and that sort
of thing. We have reservations about whether ordering parents
under threat of fine and ultimately imprisonment is the right
way in which to help parents who are often living in fairly fragile
circumstances and so on.
432. So what you are saying is that the
person handing out that particular order has to pay special attention
to the individual circumstances of the family concerned?
(Mr Allen) Very much so because it could back-fire
and the parents might say, "Well, okay, take him away. I
don't want him," and that is a disaster if they then go into
the children's homes that you have so graphically described.
433. Final warnings to stop endless repeat
cautioning: that is a good idea, is it not?
(Mr Cavadino) The system in the Bill is more flexible
than the original idea suggested. The system in the Bill is that
for a first offence a child could be given a reprimand, similar
to the current caution. For a second offence they could be given
a warning. They do not have to be on either occasion. They can
be prosecuted if the police decide that that is necessary but
there is a possibility of a reprimand for a first offence and
a warning for a second offence, which is more flexible than the
initial suggestion, which was that there would only be one chance.
434. But a great deal less flexible than
what prevails at the moment?
(Mr Cavadino) Yes, it is, but what I think is very
positive about the warning proposal is that the Bill suggests
that that will normally be accompanied by a programme of guidance
and support. The evidence currently on the caution plus programme
suggests that it can work very effectively at that stage alongside
a punishment.
435. But we all agree that if they do not
then something more serious has to follow?
(Mr Cavadino) I would like to see more flexibility—
436. Yet another caution?
(Mr Cavadino) I would like to see more flexibility
after a warning if the police decide that continuing with a diversion
programme which seems to be working well would be a better option
in terms of preventing further offending than charging and prosecuting
the child, that they would have some discretion if it was not
a serious offence, but broadly I think it is right that people
should know where they stand and in particular it is right that
the programmes of caution plus, which currently only apply to
2 per cent. of young offenders, should be the norm when somebody
is given a warning.
437. Do you support the proposal put to
us by ACOP for sentences for young offenders served partly in
prison and partly in the community?
(Mr Cavadino) That is the normal structure of a custodial
sentence for young people, that custodial sentences for young
people are normally spent partly in custody and then under a period
of supervision in the community.
438. That is already happening and it is
already working?
(Mr Cavadino) It clearly makes much more sense than
a straight custodial sentence which was then followed by release
without supervision and support.
439. Diversion, which we have touched on:
can I put to you another form of diversion which it seems to me
the Home Office pays no attention to and that is that there are
obviously children who are not inherently criminals, hundreds
of them, living in poor areas of our country, who are very vulnerable
to being attracted to crime and antisocial behaviour if left to
themselves, and they are often roaming the streets outside schools
which have sports facilities and other facilities that could be
used constructively during holidays but are all locked up. That
kind of diversion has been almost ignored, has it not, diversion
for children who have not yet offended, or at least have not been
caught offending?
(Professor Rutherford) It is the "tough on the
causes of crime" part of the famous Blair formula. I think
you are right, the "tough on the causes of crime" does
tend to get neglected. What I hope comes out of Mr Clinton's seminar
today is that the Americans are beginning to recognise that that
has been badly starved of resources.
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