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Legislation to establish a new Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Order as a robust alternative to custody for serious or persistent offenders will be introduced, the government announced last week in its response to the consultation on ‘Youth Justice – The Next Steps’, writes Clare Jerrom.

Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes are already available but they are given as a condition of a court order and the move, outlined in the response published at the same time as the Children Bill, is aimed at making the structure clearer and more straightforward.

The government believes that preventing offending is the main purpose of a sentence imposed by a court on a juvenile for a criminal offence and will legislate to clarify this in law. However, courts will also be required to take into account other factors including welfare, public protection, punishment and reparation.

The Detention and Training Order will be retained. Currently, 12-14 year olds have to be deemed both serious and persistent offenders to warrant receiving a DTO, but the government will amend this so that courts can impose DTO’s on this group for serious or persistent offending, although the maximum term will drop from 24 to 12 months.

The government wants to work with the Youth Justice Board to continue to make improvements to the juvenile secure estate. Self-contained units to separate under-18 girls from adult women will also be developed and the government proposes to legislate to treat 17-year-olds on remand and bail as juveniles rather than adults, as is currently the case.

Legislation to enable the government to vary the core membership of youth offending teams to ensure there was flexibility to deal with changing circumstances will be forthcoming and as a result, housing may be added to the core membership. Yots can also operate within Children’s Trusts “where that makes sense locally”.

Yots and the YJB will also be tasked with preventing antisocial behaviour. The government’s response to the consultation ‘Every Child Matters’ outlined that the Child Safety Order, which allows intervention to address antisocial behaviour among children under the age of 10, has been amended so that when terms of the order are breached, action taken is more appropriate.

All the planned action will depend on resources and parliamentary time.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/everychildmatters/pdfs/TheNextStep.pdf