Targets met ahead of schedule

The
government has delivered on its pledge to halve the time it takes
to deal with persistent young offenders, according to new figures
released this week.

The
youth justice pledge, announced in 1997 with a target date of March
2002, was aimed at reducing the average time it takes to get
persistent young offenders into court from the time they were
arrested.

In 1996,
dealing with a persistent young offender took an average of 142
days but new figures show that by June 2001 this had been cut to 69
days – two days below the government’s target.

Home
secretary David Blunkett welcomed the news but warned against
complacency.

“Some
long-running cases in the system may cause the figures to rise
again before they settle down,”he said. “So achieving the target is
an important landmark, but we willstill need to continue to work
together to ensure that this progress is maintained.”