You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Lords Publications > Lords Hansard > Lords Hansard by Date > Daily Hansard
Previous Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page

We would not be calling these figures independent reviewing officers if we did not expect them to operate independently. Under Clause 12, we have taken powers to establish a national service to manage the independent reviewing officers if we are not satisfied that the new responsibilities imposed on them by Clause 11 do not lead to their representing children’s views with the independence we expect. One of the independent reviewing officers’ functions under the new Section 25B in Clause 11 is to,

They are expected to represent not the view of the local authority, but that of the child.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked when we will exercise our judgment on whether we need to proceed further in the direction of a national service which

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1100

divorces the IROs and local authorities with whom we will consult. We would wish to give detailed consideration to evidence from inspections by the chief inspector and information arising from the new annual ministerial stock-take on looked-after children. In addition, the department would undertake further consultation with local government, the IROs themselves, looked-after children, their parents and carers, CAFCASS, the Children’s Commissioner, the children’s rights director and court services, all of whom can give us views on how the system is working in practice.

I have many other points to reply to, and I will have to commit to doing most of that in correspondence. I acknowledge the importance of mental health and therapeutic services raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I understand the force of the point she made on the specific issue of mental health assessments for looked-after children. However, I stress that all children who enter care must have a health assessment covering their physical, emotional and mental health. Healthcare professionals who carry out these assessments should be trained in the early identification of mental health problems and have links with CAMHS. This process should ensure that looked-after children have access to specialist assessment and mental health provision. We are alive to the concerns that the noble Baroness raised. However, we do not currently believe that a separate statutory mental health assessment would be a sensible next step.

Baroness Meacher: My Lords, I was informed by a CAMHS service that this does not actually happen. It would therefore be valuable if the Minister could consider some kind of strengthening in law to ensure that the mental health side is not neglected.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am certainly prepared to look at this further, and I would welcome particular instances being drawn to my attention so that I can grapple with the reality on the ground before we debate this.

I hope that I have dealt with many of the points that have been raised in the debate, and I shall reply to the others in writing. I shall end with a remark made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. She said that we should regard this Bill as a wake-up call for everyone responsible for children in care and that ultimately everything depends on implementation. I agree wholeheartedly, and I hope that highlighting the plight of children in care and how serious is the way in which we provide for them in education and in care placements will lead to improvements that go well beyond the scope of the provisions in the Bill.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.

Restorative Justice

7.30 pm

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer asked Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to develop restorative justice schemes.



26 Nov 2007 : Column 1101

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have put their names down to speak in this debate. Many of them will, no doubt, know far more about this subject than I do. This is a critical time in the Government’s thinking in which to raise this issue and to hear from noble Lords and from the Minister about the way forward.

Restorative justice has several definitions. One is that it is a process that,

Another is that it,

There was a moment when the Government seemed very keen on restorative justice. Back in 2003, the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, spent some time talking about it. He identified it as,

and had an important vision of the role it would play for victims of crime. He said:

There are different categories of restorative justice: restorative justice in schools; post-sentence restorative justice, such as David Blunkett was talking about; and restorative justice as part of a community policing programme. My contribution will concern restorative justice as part of a community policing programme because in the West Country, where I come from, there is a pioneering scheme. I was motivated to table this Question because, given the very positive results we are seeing from that scheme—I think the Government accept that they are positive—I want to find out why the Government have not more wholeheartedly supported it and whether they are committed to the future of such schemes. I must declare an interest in that that panel was developed by Somerset County Council, of which I was a member until 2005, and in particular by Councillor Jill Shortland, who is now leader of that council and member for Chard.

She worked closely with Avon and Somerset police, and between them, and with a great deal of enthusiasm and drive from the community, they established a community justice panel in 2005. It is run by a professional, Val Keitch. She is a pretty rare person because she is particularly well qualified, having been a probation officer, a social worker and a prison officer. Those are perfect, but rare, qualifications for the job. It is staffed by volunteers trained from the community. It deals with low-level crime and anti-social behaviour, the things that the community was having a great deal of difficulty with and which it wanted to do something about. The local paper was a great help in identifying this particular way forward as the way in which to deal with behaviour that was worrying that town.

The police—beat officers—decide which offences are referred to the panel. The reoffending rate is remarkably low. The last written figures I have are from March 2007 when the panel had heard 107 cases, of which one was a reoffence. By now, it has heard 155 cases, of which five were reoffences. Apart from those impressive figures, it saves court time and forges stronger links between police and community. It has had many

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1102

visitors, some of whom have been from the Government. Even the Lord Chancellor has visited the scheme. There is certainly interest in it. I shall return at the end of my speech to why I am concerned about how the Government view the future of the scheme.

First, I shall talk about the scheme in south Bristol. If noble Lords are interested, Chief Inspector Andy Bennett of the Avon and Somerset police has an excellent blog about the scheme. It describes the starting point, which was that he was very concerned about the unnecessary criminalisation of young people. It was from remarks made by Rod Morgan, the ex-chair of the Youth Justice Board, that Andy Bennett took his cue. He writes:

He explains how the police want to develop a Chard-type community panel especially because:

The blog has questions from the community about how the scheme will work:

Andy Bennett answers:

He identifies the first issue that I want to raise with the Minister tonight when he writes that:

Is it not unacceptable that these schemes should be competing with each other for funding? They are all innovative, and they all deserve a chance of being funded correctly. The Home Office funds short-term pilots, which is good, and councils and local police forces commit the money that they can, but the savings are made by the justice system and, I imagine, instead of being put back into developing the schemes and securing their future, they are simply kept as savings.

I could cite many other examples. The Children’s Society has a youth justice project in the north-east. It has outstandingly good results, as 80 per cent of young people who participated in face-to-face mediation have not reoffended. I am sure that the Minister and other noble Lords will be aware of similar schemes.

I shall ask the Minister a series of questions concerning restorative justice. Will it be integrated into the new victim care units? Will it be built into the new code for conditional cautioning? How will the local criminal justice boards measure their success in providing restorative justice?

One of the most fundamental difficulties that the Chard panel has come across is targets. As far as the police are concerned, a referral to the panel does not count as a sanctioned detection unless it is accompanied by a fixed-penalty fine, which they have found is a way

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1103

round it because that may not be appropriate in the cases they are hearing. However, unless the police get that fixed-penalty fine, the outcome of the panel is not recorded as successful. That should certainly be changed. That should be counted as an offence brought to justice.

As the panels develop throughout the country, as I hope that they will, there needs to be infrastructural support. With funding, the Restorative Justice Consortium could be a point of reference for good practice, information and consultancy—and quality assurance, which is very necessary.

Finally, those schemes need some encouragement. They need to hear from the Government that the work that they do is important and valued. Restorative justice must be a central theme in government statements on victim work and justice in general.

7.40 pm

Lord Warner: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate on this important subject, which still does not receive the attention and support that it deserves from what I would describe as criminal justice aficionados. I recognise that restorative justice goes wider than criminal justice, but I want to concentrate on criminal justice issues tonight, although more widely than just youth justice issues.

I first became involved with restorative justice more than 10 years ago as a special adviser to the Home Secretary. I was sitting in a rather unprepossessing hall in Aylesbury, watching an RJ-trained Thames Valley police constable conduct an interview, a restorative conference, with a young offender. I watched him get that young offender to face up to the consequences of his actions and achieve far more satisfaction for the victim, who was there, and far more understanding on the part of the victim than was ever achieved in the traditional criminal justice processes.

Here I pay tribute to Sir Charles Pollard, then the chief constable of Thames Valley and now chairman of the not-for-profit organisation Restorative Solutions, for the part that he has played in pioneering restorative justice in this country. When I chaired the new Youth Justice Board between 1998 and 2003, Charles and I, with a number of other people, were able to establish restorative justice as a key part of the new reformed youth justice system. By one of life's strange symmetries, the person who was most supportive of that was my right honourable friend Jack Straw, the then Home Secretary. It is good to see him back in charge of this territory. For the rest of my speech, I would like to provide him with what I would call a little shopping list of modest proposals that will enable us to take restorative justice further forward along the path of being well established as part of the criminal justice system.

Before turning to my shopping list, I should like to draw the House's attention to a publication by the Smith Institute issued in February and authored by two distinguished academics, Larry Sherman and Heather Strang. It sets out the findings from a considerable volume of research on restorative justice both in this country and abroad, especially in the

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1104

United States and Australia. It shows the advantages of RJ not just in youth justice but across violent and property crime by adults.

Across 36 direct comparisons to conventional criminal justice, RJ can be shown to have substantially reduced repeat offending; doubled, or more, offences brought to justice as diversion from criminal justice; reduced crime victims’ stress and the related costs; provided victims with more satisfaction with justice than the criminal justice system did and reduced their desire for revenge; and reduced the cost of the criminal justice system through diversion of inappropriate cases through that system.

Perhaps especially significantly, the study shows restorative justice reducing recidivism more than prison among adults did or as well as prison among youths did. Six rigorous field tests, three of which involved randomised controlled trials, found that RJ reduced recidivism after both adult and youth violent offences. RJ is not just for low-level offences; it can be for very serious and prolific offenders.

To all those sceptics who say that RJ has not been properly evaluated—there are still plenty of them about in the criminal justice system—I suggest that they take the trouble to read the Sherman and Strang document. Some would say that RJ has been subjected to far more high-quality evaluation than some of the other initiatives that have been tried nationally in our criminal justice system. There is a myth around that RJ is in some way a soft option because it does not involve enough punishment. The research shows that offenders find it tougher to face their victims than to go to court. Another myth is that it is costly. Even the most expensive RJ conferences—those for serious crimes—cost only £800, compared with the £35,000 a year that we pay to keep someone in prison. It is time for us to stop endlessly studying and evaluating RJ and to use it much more widely in the areas where it has proven value.

I turn to my shopping list of five key specific proposals of relatively modest cost, not all of which need be funded centrally. As the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said, a lot of this is about encouraging people locally to run with the ball in this area.

My first proposal is that we should support local criminal justice boards in developing RJ centres. Secondly, we should re-establish the RJ organisation within the Metropolitan Police area, the biggest police force in the country, in liaison with the CPS and the Prison Service, to promote the use of RJ conferences for serious crime cases in London between pleas of guilty and sentence in the Crown Courts. That was done in a government-funded trial between 2002 and 2004. Thirdly, we should fund the expansion and quality improvement of RJ in our youth justice system by supporting the Youth Justice Board’s proposals in this area. Fourthly, we should ensure that we continue to fund the Thames Valley scheme, which does similar work with serious offenders to that done in London but which is in grave danger of being forced to end through lack of funding.

Fifthly, picking up some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, we should support the police service in developing RJ both for tackling prolific

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1105

and priority offenders and in neighbourhood policing. In the latter connection, as the noble Baroness mentioned, some neighbourhood policing teams plus local authority staff working with them in areas such as Avon and Somerset, Lancashire and Cheshire are already trained in restorative approaches. Too often, there are perverse incentives in police key performance indicators that drag young offenders into the criminal justice system rather than diverting them by using RJ approaches. The Government need to look at whether some of those KPIs have unintended consequences that are stopping the police using restorative approaches.

Christmas is approaching. If my noble friend could take my list back to Santa’s grotto in Selbourne House, have it considered and let me know the outcome, I would be most grateful. While he is doing that, he might also look at the Civil Service staffing for supporting RJ. My reliable sources tell me that it is 10 per cent of one person across three departments. I know how busy his department and other departments are, but a little more oomph in Civil Service staffing to support restorative justice would not come amiss.

In conclusion, the Government deserve huge credit for getting RJ established in this country. They did it when no one else was doing it, but my sense is that, when my right honourable friend left the Home Office, the foot was taken a bit off the accelerator in this area. I hope that it can be reapplied, so that RJ can be more securely established as a key part of our criminal justice system.

7.49 pm

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Miller for introducing this very important issue into debate today.

I have a few statistics. The Reducing Reoffending by Ex-prisoners report by the Social Exclusion Unit demonstrated that more than 25 per cent of prisoners had been taken into care as a child compared with 2 per cent of the population; 43 per cent of prisoners had a family member who had been convicted of a criminal offence; and 35 per cent had a family member who had actually been in prison. A half of male and a third of female sentenced prisoners have been excluded from school. A half of male prisoners and seven out of 10 female prisoners have no qualifications. Two-thirds of prisoners have numeracy skills at or below the level expected of an 11 year-old, and a half have a reading ability and 82 per cent have writing ability at or below this level. Two-thirds of prisoners were unemployed in the four weeks before imprisonment, and around 70 per cent of prisoners suffer from two or more mental disorders; in the general population, the figures are 5 per cent for men and 2 per cent for women. In the course of my career as a criminal advocate, I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of those who are convicted of crime are damaged people: damaged by their parents, by their schools, by the society in which they live. It is necessary to approach criminal defendants from that standpoint.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 defines the purposes of sentencing as: first, the punishment of offenders; secondly, the reduction of crime, including its reduction

26 Nov 2007 : Column 1106

by deterrence; thirdly, the reform and rehabilitation of offenders; fourthly, the protection of the public; and, finally, the making of reparation by offenders to persons who have been affected by their offences. These are not complementary purposes; they compete. Prison sentences may reduce crime and protect the public for a temporary period, but offenders will be released in due course and the system catches up with itself in a very finite number of years. The more people there are in prison, the less room there is for reform and rehabilitation within the prison system and the fewer resources there are for those who are treated without it.

The rate of reoffending is absolutely unacceptable and is higher than it has ever been. In the past few years, it has gone up from 58 per cent to 67 per cent at a time when crime has been falling. The motto is not that prison works but that prison fails. Each time a person is imprisoned, the chances increase that he or she will be imprisoned again. Imprisonment creates social exclusion and homelessness, splits up families and carries a stigma for all time. The criminal justice system has its limitations. Increasingly, it is being used not to punish a crime that has happened but to attempt to control future behaviour and risk: hence the use of ASBOs, control orders, serious crime orders and so on. I have railed against those on many occasions, and I shall not take the time to do so again tonight.

Next Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page