3The Government’s progress
Young adult specific work
31.Our predecessors believed that the approach to young adults should be founded on the clear philosophy that the system should seek to acknowledge explicitly their developmental status, focus on young adults’ strengths, build their resilience and recognise unapologetically the degree of overlap between their status as victims and offenders. The Committee argued that this would involve:
- developing a common understanding of maturity, brain development and neuro-disabilities;
- trauma-informed approaches being mandatory within basic prison and probation officer training; and,
- a specialised approach to staffing prison and probation services’ work with young adults, underpinned by more in-depth training.
Assessment of maturity
32.Our predecessor Committee recommended universal screening by prisons and probation services for mental health needs, neuro-developmental disorders, maturity and neuro-psychological impairment.43 HMPPS has continued to develop its maturity screening tool which has now been tested and made available to prison and probation service providers to help them determine how many young adults under their care are likely to require services or interventions to promote maturation. This tool identifies whether individuals have low maturity. The Ministry believes that better screening will help providers determine how many young adults are likely to require services or interventions to promote maturation. The intention is that this will aid commissioning decisions as well as identify individuals most in need of support.44 It should be noted that the tool has not been validated for use on an individual level and it is recommended that further, more in-depth assessment should be conducted for any individual screened as having maturity issues.45 We have not found any evidence that this is occurring.
33.Our predecessor heard that traumatic brain injury (TBI) is also prevalent among young adults in the criminal justice system. It is estimated that as many as 60% of the prison population could be affected, although this is not known as there is no systematic assessment.46 Brain injury is associated with earlier onset, more serious, and more frequent offending and those with TBI typically present with especially complex needs and can be particularly challenging to manage. We were told that the Disabilities Trust, a charity providing specialist care for people with acquired brain injury, is continuing work on identification and support of brain injury which is being piloted in five prisons and an Approved Premises.47 Provision elsewhere was described as patchy and when asked whether there were plans to extend this work Mr Spurr agreed to look at it in the context of its value against other priorities across the system.48
34.We heard that HMPPS now has a more detailed knowledge of young adults’ individual needs although they were unable to say what issues are being identified.49 The maturity screening was equated to a risk management tool by Mr Spurr, rather than a means of measuring need and supporting change as our predecessors had hoped.50 This approach does not accord with criminological understanding about the conditions necessary for young adults to stop offending and develop non-criminal identities.51
35.A maturity resource pack—containing exercises to support staff working with young adults—was due to be piloted in four establishments holding young adult men.52 HMPPS planned to learn from this and roll it out, however one of the pilot sites, HMP Nottingham, subsequently had young adults removed, following HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ urgent notification about its performance.53 The piloting will now be limited to three sites, and there have been delays in its commencement; the process review which we were told would be completed at the end of February has also been delayed.54 The Ministry plans for later reviews to investigate whether any behavioural changes occurred, including reductions in the use of disciplinary measures (adjudications), improved engagement in education and other prison-based activities, and improved emotional management. HMPPS has also continued to promote the implementation of guidance on effective practice for young adults. We asked at both the evidence session and in subsequent correspondence for the Ministry’s assessment of the impact of this guidance; we did not receive a response on either occasion.55
36.We are encouraged to see much greater weight being given to maturity in the treatment of young adults. Nevertheless, neither the Ministry nor HMPPS appeared to have a defined approach for what should happen once maturity screening has been done. The focus has been on identifying needs when there is also a need for unrelenting attention to improving outcomes. It is unfortunate that there have been delays in implementing the screening tool and resource pack, and in assessing their impact. It is also not clear to us whether, where screening for low maturity is positive, it is followed by in-depth assessment. Accordingly, there is not yet any evidence which can convince us of the efficacy of the Government’s approach. We expect the Government in response to our report to explain whether in-depth assessments are provided for individuals ‘screened’ as having maturity needs. We also wish to see a definitive timetable for when the screening tool, maturity pack, and in-depth assessments will be available across the estate, when Government expects to see evidence of their impact, and the specific measures by which they intend to monitor improvement in outcomes for young adults in custody and in the community. We also wish to be informed at the end of the piloting of what proportion of young adults aged 18 to 25 screened were identified as having low maturity.
Building the evidence base
37.The previous Committee found that the Ministry and NOMS had not actively sought to understand what interventions work best with this cohort in relation to actions by prison staff or prison regimes, disciplinary measures, activities, or offending behaviour programmes. For example, there was a tension between practices which sought to manage violence by reducing time out of cell and others which improved behaviour by increasing access to education and training. They called for these gaps in the evidence base to be addressed urgently as misdirected interventions can serve to increase criminality in young adult offenders, for example, by further reinforcing criminal identities or a sense of unfair treatment by “the system”. The latter is known to reduce compliance.56 They also concluded that:
… reforms to governor autonomy and the delivery of probation services should not release the MoJ and NOMS from responsibility for stimulating centrally developments in potentially effective practice, expanding the availability of promising programmes, and of robustly evaluating them. A strategic approach should be adopted to collating and analysing existing data, developing the evidence base, identifying gaps in knowledge about how best to treat young adults, providing incentives to governors and probation services for devising and testing new approaches, and disseminating good practice.57
38.Michael Spurr explained that HMPPS was seeking to turn what the Committee had said into effective practice and that they had a specific aim to have targeted interventions for the different cohorts of offenders, including young people.58 We asked for an update on research plans outlined in their response including:
- an NPS review of what works best for 18 to 25-year olds in the community;
- an evaluation of the ‘Identity Matters’ programme, a 1:1 intervention to address gang or group-related violent behaviour piloted in 2014; and,
- an analysis of the impact of accredited programmes in prisons on violence and self-harm, by age.
A small-scale process evaluation of Identity Matters is underway and the Ministry has plans to submit the programme for accreditation, but no data are available on outcomes, four years after the pilot. We have been unable to determine what has happened to the other two pieces of research, which we consider important.59 There is no mention within the NPS Board’s workstreams of developing understanding of effective practice for young adults more broadly.
39.The Ministry aims to be a data-driven department. We are keen to be convinced of the efficacy of its approach to young adults, so it is disappointing not to see indicative evidence of improvement in outcomes some 18 months after its response to our predecessor’s report. In order to incentivise improvements and to enable us to scrutinise effectively their commitment to be data-driven with respect to young adults, we shall review on an annual basis HMPPS’ outcomes against the performance measures we call on the Ministry to set out. These should include reconviction, compliance with community orders, levels of offending in custody, the use of adjudications and indicators of well-being. The Ministry must also assure us that existing quarterly safety and offender management data will be published in a form that allows the data therein to be assessed for 18 to 20-year olds and 21 to 24-year olds by ethnicity.
40.The creation of the National Probation Service Board provides a welcome driver for action for young adults. We would like clarification of how progress against its workstreams will be measured and ask that the Board keep us informed of its outcomes on an annual basis. We recommended to HM Chief Inspector of Probation in our response to her consultation on work priorities that they conduct research on effective practices with young adults aged 18 to 25. The Board should consider adopting a further workstream to examine gaps in the evidence base and how best to fill them.
41.We welcome HM Inspector of Prisons’ introduction of a new expectation for prisons to ensure that the specific needs of young adults 18–25 are met which should provide the impetus for prison governors and directors to develop dedicated strategies for young adults. To ensure this leads in practice to a coordinated approach being taken by HMPPS to driving improvements in outcomes for young adults across the prison estate, which we consider necessary in the absence of a central lead, we recommend the creation of a young adults Board for prisons, akin to that established by NPS. The Board should comprise all executive governors holding young adults up to the age of 25 in their establishments and should oversee the implementation of an action plan designed to understand, address and reduce poor outcomes for young adults.
Appropriate custodial options
42.A matter of concern to us, as it was to our predecessors, is understanding the effectiveness of HMPPS’s various approaches to holding young adults in custody. Prisons have been operating a de facto policy of dispersal for those serving a sentence of detention in a young offender institution (DYOI, a dedicated custodial sentence for 18 to 20-year olds) by designating many institutions as YOIs as well as prisons. This has the effect of mixing under 21s with older adults without credible or definitive research on the impact on outcomes of this, either for young adults or for the older prisoners they are mixed with. The Committee concluded that NOMS had neither ensured that mixed establishments have strategies for dealing with young adults, nor addressed the distinct needs of 22 to 25-year olds, resulting in a lack of robust evidence on which to improve outcomes. It recommended that the Government conduct research on the subject.
43.The Ministry committed to gather further information, which would be used as the basis on which prisons should determine how best to manage young adults group day-to-day, and to evaluate the lessons learned from the six reform prisons which piloted giving greater operational and financial freedoms to prison governors.60 They stated that this would inform the Ministry’s thinking on the future of the DYOI sentence, which our predecessor had recommended should be extended to young people up to their 25th birthday. The Ministry did not accept the Committee’s view, citing the large proportion of prisoners who fall into that age bracket—roughly 14,400 prisoners or 17% of the prison population61—and the fact that a previous consultation on the sentence in 2013 had been inconclusive.62
44.We asked, in November 2017, what more was now known about the relative effectiveness of custodial options for young adults. Mr Spurr described it as “a very difficult evaluation and analysis to bring together”, while Dr Lee noted that there has been an issue about proper audit of interventions, the collection of data and proper assessment and use of it which, however, he said had now improved immeasurably.63 Mr Spurr did not think that there was anything to be learned about the treatment of young adults from the reform prisons, four of which were dual-designated sites.64 We understand that an evaluation—which will include consideration of how governors can adapt their freedoms to help meet the rehabilitative needs of young adults—will be published in Summer 2018.65
45.We asked, both during the evidence session and in subsequent correspondence, whether the sentence of detention in a young offender institution remained under review, as it had been since the 2013 consultation. We did not receive a definitive response but were given the impression by Dr Lee that its abolition was not an active consideration.66 When we asked him whether he had been party to any discussion, he said “No”, and stated that he “would hope to be” party to such a discussion, should there be one.67
46.HMPPS’ focus has been on trying to make dual-designated establishments work as well as they can.68 Nevertheless, there is no clear picture of how that is working. HM Inspectorate of Prisons defines young adults as aged 18 to 21. They found in their inspections in the year to March 2017 that 30% of young adults held in adult establishments spent less than two hours a day out of their cells and that most prisons made little distinction in the treatment of this age group.69
47.HMIP has been advocating in its reports for prisons to take a more strategic approach to provision for young adults, and its revised criteria for inspections expect that the specific needs of young adults aged 18 to 25 are met.70 Some recent inspection reports indicate that there are pockets of improvement. For example, HMP YOI Parc now holds young adults predominantly on one wing where staff have been trained specifically to deal with this age group and dedicated activities have been developed.71 In dedicated young adult institutions there is also a mixed picture. For example, in HM YOI Brinsford, violence has not increased but self-harm has risen “severely”.72 HM YOI Aylesbury has reportedly recently had incidents of disorder, allegedly after the regime was changed.73
48.Adverse life circumstances can impact on young adults’ maturity and affect typical brain development, which can be compounded by experiences in the criminal justice system.74 Our predecessors heard that many young adults have a history of being exposed to violence, including in the home, abuse, neglect, bereavement relating to the deaths of parents, siblings and other close relatives, and criminal behaviour by parents and siblings. Our predecessor Committee heard that the brain can heal to an extent up to the age of 25 if taken out of adverse circumstances, for example, separation from family and friends and exposure to punitive conditions; while the brain is continuing to develop there is a risk that problems will be compounded by involvement in the criminal justice system itself, or developmentally inappropriate interventions provided by its agencies, and that opportunities will be missed to repair in a timely manner the developmental harm caused by brain injury or other forms of trauma.75
49.Training for prison staff on trauma-informed approaches—which identify and take account of emotional trauma and other adverse events in people’s lives—has been concentrated largely in the under 18’s and women’s estates.76 The decision not to adopt a distinct approach to the treatment of young adults can be contrasted with the Government’s approach to improving safety in youth justice institutions for children. Following the Chief Inspector of Prisons’ declaration in February 2017 that all YOIs for children were unsafe,77 the Government has invested £64 million in training staff, developing trauma-informed approaches, violence reduction and changing rewards and sanctions to take a more positive approach to behaviour management,78 leading to what the Chief Inspector has described as dramatic improvements in safety.79 In the six months prior to the inspection of Feltham in December and January 2018 there was an 80% reduction in assaults on staff. The Chief Inspector observed that the prison had changed its “unremittingly negative approach to behaviour management”, introduced meaningful incentives and an improved regime and had a much-improved response to violence.80 Similarly, in October 2017, the Chief Inspector of Probation commended the trauma-informed practices that had been adopted by a small number of youth offending teams for dangerous and violent young offenders aged under 18.81
50.The previous Committee also considered the practical implications for young adults of some operational prison policies. They regarded the prison disciplinary system and the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme—both of which are mechanisms to manage behaviour, including violence—as inappropriate to the developmental status of young adults because they respond more positively to immediate rewards than to punishment. Dr Lee accepted that young adults “respond to reward and punitive action in different ways depending on their maturity.”82 Nevertheless, both of these are still in place. Governors are not yet able to implement IEP schemes flexibly, despite an urgent redesign of the scheme initiated by Rt Hon Mr Gove in early 2016.83 We understand that this will soon be possible, within certain parameters, enabling governors to devise more developmentally appropriate schemes.84 Recent Safety in Custody and Offender Management statistics highlight that existing policies may not be effective: assaults continue to rise, along with the use of disciplinary hearings (known as adjudications).85
51.We note the complexity of determining the relative effectiveness of custodial placements for young men and welcome the Ministry’s indication that research will be conducted, which is long overdue. Nevertheless, we share our predecessor’s grave concerns that in the absence of such research existing approaches to holding young adults in custody may be doing more harm than good. We do not think the Ministry’s plans to gather evidence amounts to the robust research our predecessor concluded was required. The Ministry must set out in its response how it intends to demonstrate definitively that HMPPS’s operational practices are appropriate to young adults’ development needs and report within the next year.
Transition between the youth and adult justice systems
52.Every year there are over 2,000 movements of young people under 18 across services within the community, or in custody, or into the adult system. The Government said in its response that it had “continued to make progressive improvements to the transitions process”, explaining that the Transitions Protocol agreed in 2012 was becoming a policy framework setting out procedures and policies for the effective management of transfer of supervision from youth offending teams to probation services. Michael Spurr told us that this had resulted in stronger transition arrangements operating across the custodial estate.86 Our discussions during our visit to HM YOI Cookham Wood, which holds young men under 18, and HMP YOI Rochester, a dual-designated site, indicates that these arrangements still need strengthening in some places: we were told by governors that other pressures and priorities meant that there was limited focus by the two establishments on the transition between them.
Care leavers
53.It is estimated that nearly half of young men and two thirds of young women in custody aged between 16 and 21 have recently been in statutory care.87 Our predecessors heard that these young people face particularly acute challenges in desisting from offending and making an effective transition to adulthood; they do not typically have family to rely on for support and frequently continue to struggle with feelings of rejection and abandonment and the loss of family members, into their early twenties.88 HMPPS has established a National Care Leavers Forum and a network of regional leads to co-ordinate efforts to support care leavers in prison and probation. Within custody, HMPPS has focused on identifying former looked-after children—who, under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, are now entitled to statutory support by local authorities up to the age of 26—and promoting staff understanding of the problems that they face, for example, being without the support of family. While this has led to improvements in knowing who has been through the care system, the Ministry acknowledged that there was a “great deal” more to do. For example, there is still limited understanding within HMPPS of the entitlements and needs of care leavers; access to local authority provision is not routine. HMPPS were also unable to evidence how this has improved, although processes are in place to do so.89 The Offender Management in Custody model will extend probation officer support to all looked-after children and the Ministry is working with the charity Catch 22 to engage with local authorities and ensure that the required support is provided.90
BAME young adults
54.18 to 24-year olds are the age group in which there is the greatest level of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) overrepresentation in the adult prison estate. If the prison population reflected the population, there would be 2,850 fewer BAME young adults in prison.91 The racial and ethnic disproportionalities for under 18s and adults identified by David Lammy MP in his September 2017 review echoed Baroness Lola Young’s findings three years earlier on ways to improve results for young black and Muslim men and on which the previous Committee noted in its report there had been little change. These also repeat the findings of the Home Affairs Committee which, over ten years ago, in June 2007 called for a coherent cross-departmental strategy to reduce these disproportionalities.92
55.Mr Spurr highlighted specific initiatives that had arisen from the Young Review in Isis and Feltham and with CRCs.93 The Ministry told us it is taking forward almost every recommendation made by Mr Lammy in some way, although as Dr Lee recognised, much of the disproportionality found has its origins outside the criminal justice system.94 Additional analysis on trends in associations between ethnic background and being sentenced to custody in under 18s between 2009 and 2016 was undertaken for the Review.95 This found that the proportion of BAME young people in custody had increased as the overall numbers in youth custody had fallen. We assume that the same is likely to be true of young adults. The NPS young offender Board has an objective to develop and implement a plan to reduce disproportionality of BAME young offenders.96
56.While we welcome the Ministry’s commitment to implement as far as possible the recommendations of the Lammy Review, the strikingly slow progress that has been made on improving outcomes for young black and Muslim men in the four years since the Young Review which the Government were also committed to implementing, illustrates the scale of the problem and resulting action required. The MoJ’s Race and Ethnicity Board should therefore develop, as a priority, a meaningful programme to address disproportionalities for young BAME adults aged 18 to 25. As disproportionalities are likely to originate outside the criminal justice system addressing them must also be a high priority for the Reducing Reoffending Taskforce. The NPS young offenders Board should also extend its workstream to reduce disproportionalities to young adults up to the age of 25.
Prosecution and sentencing
57.The consideration of maturity is included in guidance for prosecutors in assessing culpability (in the Code for Crown Prosecutors since 2012) and for sentencers in assessing mitigation (in sentencing guidelines). However, our predecessors were unable to determine the impact of these measures and concluded that:
Neither CPS investigating prosecutors nor sentencers have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of maturity to weigh up how it may affect young adults’ culpability. In addition, they do not routinely have the necessary information on which to make robust assessments about an individual’s maturity and hence take account of this in their reasoned prosecution and sentencing decisions. It is likely therefore that maturity is considered primarily in cases where there is extreme immaturity.97
58.In response to the Committee’s recommendation that further research be conducted to assess the impact of the Code and guidance on young adults, the Government stated that it could not require the Sentencing Council to conduct further research as it is an independent, non-departmental public body.98 While the Sentencing Council considered conducting further research, it did not then have the resources to do so.99 The Council now plans to consult on a general guideline that will contain a fuller explanation of the ‘age and/or lack of maturity’ factor; this will include conducting research interviews with sentencers on the guideline’s likely impact.
59.The Ministry committed to including consideration of maturity in all pre-sentence reports for young adults. The NPS Board has an objective to “ensure that all court assessments and reports have regard for the maturity issues presented by young adults to support proportionate recommendations and access to interventions”.100 We sought to establish in the evidence session what proportion of young adults receive a pre-sentence report and were told that courts now received more ‘on-the-day’ reports.101 We have been told that approximately a quarter of those receiving pre-sentence reports are young adults and that it is not possible to determine the exact proportion of young adults who receive a pre-sentence report due to way in which data are collected.102 Nevertheless, in 2017, 45,791 people aged 18 to 24 were sentenced and 34,223 people aged 18 to 25.103
60.The Ministry told us that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) committed to: consider whether specific investigation could be made in relation to prosecutors’ consideration of age and maturity when charging and reviewing cases; assess the impact of mandatory training for youth prosecutors which covers age and maturity; and provide additional written guidance to assist prosecutors in their consideration of age and maturity. Progress has been made on raising awareness of considering young adults’ maturity in training and guidance.104 We wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions to update us directly on CPS’ progress on this. She responded that: youth prosecutors do not have a formal requirement to review cases involving young adults; no specific research has been conducted on the impact of the Code as it would be impracticable and disproportionately costly and compliance with it is monitored through case reviews; guidance took the form of a reminder in September 2017 of the importance of considering age and maturity; CPS would include specific reference to age and maturity in future updates to guidance; and a forthcoming review of the Code will consider whether amendment to the existing wording on age and maturity is necessary.
61.We welcome the Crown Prosecution Service’s progress on training and guidance for prosecutors and its intention to keep this under review. The Sentencing Council’s intention to strengthen its guidance to sentencers on consideration of age and maturity is also welcome. We remain of the view that research on sentencers and prosecutors understanding of maturity, as well as on the impact on young adults of assessments of maturity made during prosecution, pre-sentence and sentencing, is necessary. We urge the Ministry, in its endeavour to be data-driven, to conduct this research using data from the National Probation Service, Sentencing Council and Crown Prosecution Service. We ask that the Crown Prosecution Service keeps us informed on its decision regarding possible amendments to the Code related to consideration of age and maturity. The CPS should consider piloting the use of youth prosecutors who are specifically trained in understanding maturity for decisions involving young adults up to the age of 25.
Young adult courts
62.The Government committed to examine the result of a feasibility study which had been undertaken to proposed improvements in the treatment of young adults during their passage through courts—which our predecessor considered there was merit in testing—and to discuss with the senior judiciary the potential to use the skills of its members who hear cases involving young people. The Transition to Adulthood Alliance had been intending to fund pilots of five young adult courts with the Centre for Justice Innovation. Following our evidence session, the Centre wrote to update us on these pilots.105 We were told that while good progress had been in developing the model and local partners were ready to implement it, they had not yet been granted permission to proceed. The Ministry stated that “[t]hough these feasibility studies have not gone on to being tested in practice, we have learned a great deal and may find opportunities to use this learning in the future”.106 The Mayor of London has agreed with HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice that it can consider with the judiciary establishing a young adult appropriate court.107 The Lord Chief Justice, The Lord Burnett of Maldon, has endorsed courts’ consideration of maturity in sentencing young adults.108 Court staff in Wales have received training in brain injury awareness, funded by HMPPS.109
63.It is regrettable that young adult court pilots have not yet materialised; this seems inexplicable, given that they had local support and funding and potential to positively impact on adherence to court decisions. We would like to see the Lord Chief Justice’s recent observations about young adults’ maturity and MOPAC’s commitment to establish such a court in London give fresh impetus to the Minister and HMCTS to endorse such pilots. We welcome training in brain injury awareness in Welsh courts. This should be extended to English courts.
Generalised initiatives which may benefit young adults
64.The Ministry stated in January 2017 in its response to our predecessor’s report that its priority was providing effective and credible community sentences where appropriate that keep young adults in the community, and integrated into local education, employment or health services. It stated it would shortly set out plans for such sentences. But these have not been published. In February 2018, we heard that the Ministry was working with the Royal Society of the Arts’ New Futures Network, to provide advice and support to governors about employment availability in their localities, and support employers, with emphasis on getting young adults into employment.110
65.In May 2018, the Ministry published its Education and Employment Strategy for adult prisoners and launched this network, although no specific mention is made of young adults.111 The Government refers in the strategy to its support for Ban the Box, an initiative which encourages employers to remove the tick box from application forms which ask about criminal convictions. Our predecessor Committee welcomed this approach, but concluded that enabling young adults to form non-criminal identities following their involvement in the criminal justice system would require a change in the treatment of their criminal records, if necessary through legislation.112 In our inquiry on youth criminal records, we recommended a new statutory framework for the treatment of criminal records gained by those who commit offences under the age of 18 and asked the Government to conduct comprehensive research on a new approach to the disclosure of criminal records for young adults up to the age of 25.113 The Government has committed to considering criminal records disclosure for children and young adults, following the conclusion of related litigation in the Supreme Court.114
66.We are encouraged by the Ministry’s approach to the disclosure of criminal convictions on job applications under the Ban the Box scheme. We see no reason why the judgment of the Supreme Court should delay the Ministry of Justice and Home Office’s preparation for a substantive response to our report on the disclosure of youth criminal records. We urge them to revisit with urgency our recommendations on new statutory frameworks for disclosure for children and young adults, on which they are yet to respond. We expect to see this response within a month of the Supreme Court judgment.
67.In relation to health, since April 2017 prison governors in England have greater input into decision-making with NHS commissioners to ensure that knowledge of their cohort’s particular needs inform the provision of prison health services.115 The Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry on healthcare in prisons may assist in highlighting the impact this has had on provision in practice.116
68.We have not been able to determine the extent to which the prison governor empowerment and Transforming Rehabilitation agendas have facilitated more dedicated approaches towards young adults. While the Government’s response noted examples of CRCs which were providing distinct responses to young adults, the cohort model adopted initially by London CRC proved complex and unsustainable.117 The Transition to Adulthood Alliance recently confirmed that the majority of Community Rehabilitation Companies (private probation services) have developed strategies for managing 18 to 25-year olds as a distinct group.118 While HM Inspectorate of Probation does not explicitly examine practices for young adults, its standards include consideration of whether models of delivery and staff expertise are appropriate to meet identified needs and risks and provide high-quality and personalised services.119
69.Our predecessors concluded that relationships with trusted, credible, and understanding practitioners and with supportive families and other networks are of critical importance in comprehending as fully as possible the nature of young adults’ risks and vulnerabilities and in supporting them to stop offending and developing their resilience and maturity. In response to the Committee’s recommendations concerning the need for specialist and dedicated staff to support young adults, as proposed by Lord Harris in July 2015, HMPPS is implementing the Offender Management in Custody model.120 This has two distinct, but interconnected parts: key work and case management. Key workers will “develop constructive, motivational relationships” with people in prison (on a 1:6 ratio) through 1:1 sessions, supporting them “to make appropriate choices” and “giving them hope and responsibility for their own development”.121 The case management element will differ depending, for example, upon the length of sentence and assessed risk, among other factors. More specialist cases, which will include care leavers, will have a dedicated case manager. Mr Spurr told us that this will strengthen the targeting of interventions to particular cohorts, including young adults.122 The assessment of maturity does not appear to be a factor in determining eligibility for specialist case management.
70.HMPPS must evaluate the effectiveness of the Offender Management in Custody model in a sample of establishments one year after its implementation. This should include a review of i) the extent to which young adults identified as lacking maturity benefit from enhanced case management and ii) the potential benefits of including lack of maturity in the criteria for enhanced case management.
44 Letter from Rory Stewart to Chair, 21 May 2018
45 Ibid re validation research
47 Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p3
49 Q6; Q69 [Mr Spurr]; See also Letter from Rory Stewart to Chair, 21 May 2018
51 See for example, the work of the Beyond Youth Custody programme which recognises that effective and sustainable resettlement facilitates a shift in the way that a young person sees themselves, from an identity that promotes offending to one that promotes a positive contribution to society.
52 Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p3
53 Ibid; HM Chief Inspector of Prisons news release January 2018
54 Q7; Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p.5; Letter from Rory Stewart to Chair, 21 May 2018
55 Q67; Letter to Dr Lee, 29 November 2017; Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018,
60 Government response; four of the reform prisons held young adults
62 Government response, para 22
65 Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p6
66 Q83 [Dr Lee]; Letter to Dr Lee, 29 November 2017
67 Ibid.
69 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, Annual Report 2016–17, July 2017, p8
70 See for example, HM Inspectorate of Prison reports on HMP YOI Altcourse and HMP YOI Hindley
HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Criteria for assessing the treatment of and conditions for men in prisons, July 2017
71 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Report of an unannounced inspection of HMP YOI Parc
72 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Report of an unannounced inspection of HM YOI Brinsford, March 2018
73 BBC News, HMP Aylesbury: Prisoners ‘trash wing’ in riot, 15 April 2018
77 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales Annual Report 2016–17, p9
79 See for example, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Reports on HMYOI Feltham A, 9 May 2018 and HMYOI Werrington, 5 June 2018
80 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Report on an unannounced inspection of HMYOI Feltham (Feltham A – children and young people), May 2018. This inspection took place in December 2017 and January 2018. The previous inspection took place in January and February 2017.
81 HM Inspectorate of Probation, The Work of Youth Offending Teams to Protect the Public, 26 October 2017
83 Letter from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to the Chair, Justice Committee, 19 May 2016
84 Rt Hon Rory Stewart MP letter to Chair, Statutory Instrument to amend the Prison Rules 1999, 27 April 2018
85 Offender management statistics quarterly: October to December 2017, 26 April 2018; Safety in custody statistics quarterly: update to December 2017, 26 April 2018
88 Ibid and para 18. See also Howard League (2010) Young, Adult and No Support: The entitlements of young adults to care in the community, London.
89 Q62 [Mr Spurr and Dr Lee]; Letter from Dr Lee, pp7–8
91 Ibid; Young Review; Prison Reform Trust, Bromley Briefing Autumn 2017, p 40, citing Table 11, Kneen, H. (2017) An exploratory estimate of the economic cost of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic net overrepresentation in the Criminal Justice System in 2015, London: Ministry of Justice
92 Home Affairs Committee, Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System Second Report of Session 2006–07, Young Black People in the Criminal Justice System, HC 181-I, 15 June 2007
95 Trends in associations between ethnic background and being sentenced to custody for young offenders in England and Wales between 2009 and 2016, Ministry of Justice, November 2017
96 Letter from Rory Stewart, 21 May 2018 appendix
98 Government response, para 72
99 Letter from Rt Hon Lord Justice Treacy, 14 May 2018
100 Letter from Rory Stewart, 21 May 2018 appendix
102 Letter from Rory Stewart, 24 May 2018.
103 See letter for more details on caveats in using this data.
104 Letter from Dr Lee, p4; Q84 [Ms Toogood]
105 Letter from the Centre to Justice Innovation, 15 November 2017
106 Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p.5
107 Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, Memorandum of Understanding Between the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, the Ministry of Justice and London Councils, 26 March 2018
108 The Times, Immature offenders don’t deserve jail, says law chief, Frances Gibb, 3 May 2018
109 Letter from Dr Lee, 27 February 2018, p 3
112 HC169, para 149. For example, the Committee suggested the possibility of expunging records, providing incentives for employers to employ ex-offenders, and deferring prosecutions.
113 Justice Committee, First Report of Session 2017–2019, Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records, HC 416, 27 October 2017, paras 71–74
114 Government response to the Justice Committee’s First Report of Session 2017–2019: Disclosure of youth criminal records, Cm 9559, January 2018, para 74–75
115 Letter from Dr Lee February 2018, p6
116 Health and Social Care Committee press release, Prison healthcare inquiry launched, 27 April 2018
117 Q65 [Mr Spurr]. See also HM Inspectorate of Probation, Quality & Impact inspection: The effectiveness of probation work by the London Community Rehabilitation Company, March 2018
118 Barrow Cadbury Trust, Comprehensive summary from the Ministry of Justice on its approach to young adults is published, Press notice issued via email, 16 March 2018 (Not online)
119 HM Inspectorate of Probation, Standards for inspecting probation services, March 2018
Published: 20 June 2018