News

Despite their impressive impact on the youth justice system, it seems that intensive supervision and surveillance programmes (ISSPs) are not having the desired effect. It had been hoped that they would lead to a marked reduction in the numbers of under-18s in custody, but new figures show that they have barely fallen even though thousands of ISSPs have been dished out. According to the Youth Justice Board, 6,339 young people were placed on the programmes by the courts between July 2001 and September 2003, while under-18s in custody dropped by only 143 to 2,760 between July 2001 and August this year. There is clear evidence that, instead of being used as an alternative to custody, ISSPs are being used where community sentences would have been given anyway. Chris Stanley, head of crime reduction at offender rehabilitation agency Nacro, said the programme had "taken up the slack at the upper end of community sentences. It has not been used to deal with children committing offences higher up the scale."   

Bob Hudson, professor of partnership studies, Centre for Health Services Management, University of Birmingham
"One of the longest established research findings is that custodial sentences do not reduce recidivism, yet custody seems to lead a charmed life in political circles. The best route for the youth justice service would be to prise it away from the Home Office and put it in with all of the other services for children in the Department for Education and Skills and the pending children's trusts. We might then see youth justice related properly to children's services rather than inappropriately to adult penal policies."

Karen Squillino, primary prevention co-ordinator, Barnardo's
"Magistrates appear to be using ISSPs, designed to ensure more effective community punishments, for offences that were once dealt with through the imposition of supervision orders. This should then bring the culture of the magistracy under scrutiny. The number of young people in custody has not fallen significantly and there appears to have been an up-tariffing on sentencing that has not been challenged. The alleged sentencing patterns and potential misuse of ISSPs needs to be addressed as they are not currently serving their purpose."

Bill Badham, development officer, National Youth Agency
"Community sentencing will never reduce imprisonment rates. There is more political capital for the government in generating a moral panic over youth crime than celebrating falling crime rates and establishing a youth justice system based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. ISSPs have no chance when government is set to keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10, make it easier to lock up 12-14 year olds and not treat under-18s separately from adults."

Felicity Collier, chief executive, Baaf Adoption and Fostering
"The Probation Service used to use the term 'alternative to custody' for supervision orders with an intensive intermediate treatment condition back in the 1980s when I was working with young offenders and we were able to convince the courts to use them for just that. It is tragic to see us going backwards again. When will politicians realise that custody can irreparably damage children's lives and should only be used when the risk to the public is exceptional?"

Julia Ross, social services director, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
"Custodial institutions have struggled to create the right environment to rehabilitate young people in terms of inmates' well being and offending behaviour. There have, of course, also been concerns about the application of the Children Act. This leads us to the conclusion that developing and rethinking community sentences in different forms has to be the only real alternative. How we make that alternative work is the real challenge."