Independent Parliamentarians’ Inquiry into the Operation and Effectiveness of the Youth Court

The Parliamentary Inquiry into the Operation and Effectiveness of the Youth Court was launched in September 2013. It seeks to determine whether the system of criminal courts for children who offend is meeting its stated aim of preventing offending and having regard to the welfare of the children that appear before them. The inquiry received a total of 55 written submissions and heard from 43 witnesses; these included academics, practitioners, policy makers and young people

Challenges and opportunities
We heard that reductions in the number of children entering the system and coming to court as well as closures of courts has created particular challenges. A key issue of concern is that children are increasingly likely to appear in adult magistrates’ courts when they are detained overnight and over the weekend, because there will be no youth court sitting. We were informed too that the youth courts are seeing a greater concentration of children with complex needs in court, likely due to the success in reducing the number of children coming into the system for low level matters. However, the decrease in critical mass offers an opportunity to better focus resources on improving the system for child defendants, victims and their families.

Diversion
There was wide support for high levels of diversion among inquiry respondents, with many referring to the strong body of evidence that contact with the criminal justice system can increase the likelihood of offending. There was concern that out-of-court diversion schemes share some of the same negative features as formal system contact, such as Disclosure and Barring Service disclosures, and that this was often not made sufficiently clear to children. Most believed that diversion was effectively preventing children from entering the criminal courts system unnecessarily. However a number of responses argued that some children were still ‘falling through the net’, leading to unnecessary prosecution, particularly children in care
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Addressing underlying needs
Submissions emphasised that children’s offending flows from a wide range of needs. There was a widely held view that welfare services are often failing to address such needs, which results in children falling into the youth justice system, and struggling to free themselves from it. Particular concern was expressed that resource constraints on children’s social services are such that only the most acute cases receive support – typically babies and young children – while vulnerable older children are left out. Involvement of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) frequently has the effect of further raising the threshold for support, as there is often a perception that YOTs should be the sole body tackling the welfare needs of children who offend. A number of organisations reported that there had been some improvement in children’s services involvement with children who offend following the  ntroduction of new remand arrangements. However, it is often the case that courts are only able to focus on the offence, and not the child and the wider circumstances contributing to their behaviour

Lack of engagement and understanding  Submissions highlighted young people’s lack of understanding of proceedings or language, owing to the prevalence of neuro developmental disorders and other problems, that hinder participation and the lack of any systematic court processes to identify these. Additional factors that impede child defendant’s understanding include their young age and developmental immaturity and the fact that the cohort of children in the youth court have had fewer educational opportunities

Specialisation
Magistrates and District Judges in youth proceedings must undergo specialist youth training, yet there are no such requirements for defence practitioners or Crown Court judges. Youth specialist prosecutors are only used for part of the court process. To compound the issue, the youth court is often used as a place for legal practitioners to ‘cut their teeth’ and Crown Court judges tend to have little experience of dealing with youth cases. Respondents were virtually unanimous in their belief that all practitioners in youth proceedings should have youth specialist training; many believed that this should be a mandatory requirement. Crown Court

The overwhelming majority of responses argued that the Crown Court was inappropriate for children; its intimidating nature and lack of youth specific expertise was said to prevent effective sentencing and participation and, ultimately, contravene the right of children to a fair trial. There was subsequently strong support for a presumption retaining youth cases in the youth court.

The role of the youth court
The prevailing view was that youth proceedings are struggling to meet their principal aim of preventing offending and their duty to have regard to the welfare of the child. Criminal courts do not possess the means to address the wide range of welfare issues that so often underlie a child’s offending. There was subsequently wide support for the adoption of a more problem-solving approach to children who offend.