Youth Offender Panels
From April 2002, England and Wales will pioneer an entirely new way of dealing with young offenders aged between 10 and 17 years old.
All of the local criminal justice agencies have combined their efforts and resources to bring the scheme to Leicester.
This partnership now needs to involve local people of the community to make it work.
What is a Youth Offender Panel?
Most young offenders who appear in court for the first time and plead guilty will receive a Referral Order, lasting from 3 to 12 months and requiring them to attend a Youth Offender Panel meeting.
What happens at the Panel Meetings?
Each Youth Offender Panel meeting will have two community members and a member of the Youth Offending Team.
The panel will be led by one of the community members, with the Youth Offending Team member providing information and support.
The panel will meet with the young offender, their family and where appropriate, the victim with the aim of reaching an agreement that:
- Considers how and why the offences occurred and what can be done to prevent it happening again
- Ensures young offenders take responsibility for their behaviour.
- Increases the young offender’s understanding of the harm done to the victim and how they can make amends.
- Afterwards, the Youth Offending Team will monitor the young offender to ensure adherence to the agreement. The panel will meet to review progress and can refer the youth offender back to court if the agreement is not being kept.
How is a youth Offender Panel different from a Youth Court?
Although Panel has the backing of the court, it is not a court of law. There are several important differences:
- Panel will be less formal than courts. This will encourage communication between the young offenders, their family and their victims
- Panel members will have a particular understanding of the effects of crime in the community.
- The local nature of panels will bring home the real effects of crime to the young offender by requiring them to consider the effects of their actions on victims and the rest of the community.
Who can be a panel member?
As long a s you are at least 18 years old, you can apply to be a community panel member. No qualification or experience is required and the most important factor will be your personal qualities.
Panels will reflect the communities they serve and we are looking for members who reflect the diversity of the areas they come from, in term of age, gender , ethnic origin and social background.
You should be of good character, although criminal convictions will not necessarily disqualify you as long as they are not serious or recent.
You will need to be prepared to undergo police checks and provide references to show you are suitable to deal with young people.
Commitment
Community Panel members will be expected to serve on at least one panel per month. We expect panel meeting to last between 45-90minutes
You will receive 56 hours training in the first year and regular refresher course and support from the youth offending team after that.
Members will need to commit themselves to serving for at least a year.
If you are interested, please contact
Referral Order Coordinator
Leicester City Youth Offending Team
0116 299 5830
Or visit
Leicester City Youth Offending Team
Eagle House
11 Frair Lane, Leicester
LE1 5RB
Tel: 0116 299 5830
Email: youth.offending.team@leicester.gov.uk
False abuse allegations to be wiped from workers’ records
Teachers and youth workers who have been cleared of alleged abuse against children will be able to wipe the claims from their records, the government has said.
Junior children’s minister Baroness Delyth Morgan last week pledged to change the system as part of an overhaul of the statutory guidance on handling of allegations of abuse against those who work with young people.
Morgan said a review of the guidance had shown it to be largely effective. However, she acknowledged concerns within the sector over the requirements in existing guidance that references on prospective employees should contain details of any allegations of abuse, even those proved untrue.
In a letter accompanying the launch of a consultation on the revised guidance, Morgan said: “I am happy now to confirm that we do intend to amend the guidance to make clear that allegations which have been investigated and demonstrated to be completely untrue do not need to be included in a teacher’s references.
“We are committed to ensuring that the systems for dealing with allegations provide effective protection for children against abuse while also providing a fair, transparent system for teachers and other members of the children’s workforce that minimises the impact of allegations that turn out to be unfounded.”
David Whewell, chair of the Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services, welcomed the proposed change. He said: “This is an important change. If someone has been accused of something and that accusation has been found to be untrue, to then tar them with that forever more is very unfair.”
By Ben Willis
Children & Young People Now
15 May 2009
Big idea to ease prison overcrowding is scales back
Jack Straw has abandoned plans to build three giant ”Titan” prisons, each holding 2,500 inmates, after criticism from prison governors and penal reform groups.
The £1.2 billion programme for the biggest jails in Britain was the centrepiece of a huge expansion of prison places to 96,000 by 2014. Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, will tell MPs next week that instead of the three Titan, the Government plans to build “mini-Titans”, each holding 1500 inmates.
He will announce the sites for two of the new jails next week, providing a future justice secretary with the option of scrapping the remaining three if the prison population stabilities. The mini-Titans are planned for the South East, North West and West Midlands and will be built and run by the private sector.
They form part of the biggest prison building programme in Western Europe. In addition to the five 1,500 – place jails, the Government is planning to build eight smaller prisons to house 5,400 inmates.
The Ministry of Justice said that total prison capacity would till increase as planned. “We have consulted on plans for new prisons and have listened carefully to all views.” a spokesman said.
A Whitehall source said that Mr Straw had never been ideologically wedded to Titans. He had listened to people such as Dame Anne Owners, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, and decided on the grounds of efficiency, effectiveness and security that it was better to build jails with 1,500 places, the source said.
A consultation paper on Titans last June said that each jail would be built on a 50-acre site. The jails would have been up to five storeys but divided into five separate units each holding about 500 inmates. Ministers argued that a Titan site could have held self-contained remand jails, youth jails and prisons for adults, allowing for saving to be made on shared services such as catering, education and administrative functions.
Whitehall sources said that the five new prisons were expected to cost “roughly the same” as the Titans. It was unclear how the economies of scale provided by three Titans could be achieved by building five 1,500 superjails. The Titans, a name Mr. Straw disliked, were part of a programme intended to fill a predicted 13,600 shortfall in prison places by 2014. Twenty of the 135 jails in England and Wales hold more than 1,000, including inmates, followed by Birmingham with 1,400 and Wormwood Scrubs with 1,225.
The prison population yesterday was 82, 773, a rise of 21 on the previous week. If the prison estate, 88 out of 135 prisons are overcrowded and more than a quarter of inmates are in cells holding one more than they were designed for.
Penal reformers welcomed then abandonment of the Titans but said that building mini- Titans was not an answer to overcrowding. Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform said that Titan was not an answer to overcrowding. Frances Crook, director of the Howard League of Penal Reform, said that Titan jails were a disastrous idea and were now a “titanic policy failure”.
Ms Crook added: “Building five 1,500 – place prisons, bigger than any other jail in the country, is not the answer to the chronic problem of overcrowding and violence in our jails.”
Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “Warehousing offenders in hulks twice the size of Wembley Stadium was never going to address increased levels of reoffending and so we welcome plans to scrap Titan prisons.
“However, Jack Straw needs to urgently explain how he will address the crisis in the prison population that has resulted in thousands of prisoners being released early. Only by increasing capacity, reducing overcrowding and replacing our old, expensive and ineffective prisons can we reform offenders and cut crime.”
Source: The Times – 25th April 2009
Teenagers need the power to step off the trouble train
No one who has power, status and security wants to give it up. And it’s especially had for anyone who makes policy or implements it to admit that they should share their power.
The people who run the country generally only talk to, and are influenced by, others like themselves: graduates with good grammar and a history of working hard and doing well. So it felt like a historic day last month when I went into No 10 Downing Street with a bunch of teenagers who don’t fit that mould.
To read the full article please click to the link below
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/apr/15/mark-johnson-inside-out
http://www.mark-johnson.org.uk/about/
Church prison project folds through lack of Government support
A pioneering prison support project, welcomed by hundreds of inmates and staff, has folded due to lack of Government support.
The project, developed in Lancashire by the Church of England’s Diocese of Blackburn, was designed to be of national benefit by cutting re-offending rates through comprehensive support to prisoners and their families.
More than 1,300 prisoners applied to join the pilot project, in four Lancashire goals, during its three-year lifespan. The Family Days and Support Project trained 120 volunteers to work with four prisons, Preston, Lancaster Castle, Kirkham and Wymott, creating opportunities for families to spend time together in creative activities.
“The project has helped shape future plans for prisoners and their families in the prisons,” said a 70 page project review, published on April 1st. “The consensus was that the project has filled a niche and will be badly missed.
“The overwhelming feeling is one of sadness and frustration that the project has ended, and worry that much of the good which it has undoubtedly done may be wasted without something to take its place. The general conclusion is that this project, or something very similar, should not only be reinstated in Lancashire but repeated throughout the country.”
The project aimed to create a “through the gate” support policy, keeping families together, reducing re-offending rates by 20 percent and achieving a £3 saving for each £1 invested.
Prisoner rehabilitation started during the first week of a prisoner’s sentence and the project included encouraging work with other prisoner problems like drugs, accommodation, employment and education and training.
Peter Nowland, who supervised the project for the Church of England, said availability of funding from HM Prison Service North – west changed during the year that the three year Treasury funding ran out.
While some of the work led to Family Support posts being set up in prisons “this does not fully address the family issues in the community, nor the need to support families and ex-offenders upon release.”
An unnamed prison governor said: “I think we’d be foolish if we didn’t roll it out, not just regionally but nationally because it’s a key part of what prisoners need… recognition there’s gaps in their lives that we’ve been trying to fix.”
A prisoner commented: “As a prison Listener I truly believe that this project is playing an additional role towards suicide prevention, self- harm reduction … in what I regard as a vital project for the prison Service.” And a family member added: “if I won the lottery I’d give Grassroots (the Church department running the scheme) a couple of million quid just to carry on.”
Source: www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/9121
St Giles Trust – Jimmy’s story
From long term drug addict, to voluntary adviser of prisoners, to management, to the 2012 Olympics. St. Giles Trust supported Jimmy in his first steps away from a life of offending that had spanned 20 years.
Jimmy was one of the first prisoners trained by St Giles to NVQ3 in Advice and Guidance.
Read the full success story on the St. Giles Trust website – Real life cases : Jimmy’s story
Action for Prisoner’s Families
APF is the national membership organisation representing the needs of organisations working with families of prisoners across England and Wales.
They represent the views and experiences of their members – organisations providing direct services to the families of people in prison – as well as of families themselves. They support the development of new and existing services, promote good practice on working with prisoners, their children and families both in prison and in the community, publish information, influence policy and raise awareness of the impact of imprisonment on children and families.
Action for Prisoner’s Families
Futures Unlocked
For many of the inmates a new life is wanted on the outside of a prison. They want to start again, make a new life for themselves and their families and put something back into community.
The reality is that however positive they are inside, the chances of living a crime-free life can be difficult.
The challenges are immense. Friends, family, society are expecting them to fail.
We have a different approach as we want them to succeed in life, staying crime free, drug free, and living a life to be proud of.
St Giles Trust – people positive
“I know of few more practical contributions to the solution of the ongoing problem and could not commend their work more highly.”
Lord Ramsbotham, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, on the work of St Giles Trust.
Our aim is to reduce crime and social exclusion. We believe that the people we help can be part of the solution to crime and offending.
Website – St Giles Trust
Clives Blog – Offender eLearning
“Prompted by my discovery of the Learning and Skills Council funded Offender Learning and Skills Service, I attended a NIACE conference in Bradford at the beginning of the month concerned with e-learning for offenders. Offender learning covers a wide range of institutions from Category A prisons to institutions providing support for non-custodial offenders.
“The priority for all custodial institutions is security. Prison governors have tremendous authority and are obviously nervous about the use of the internet and other means of communications, In most institutions CDs and pen drives are banned, necessitating tightly controlled computer networks (where they exist at all).
“The requirements for offender learning in order to assist rehabilitation and a reduction in re-offending are clear.
“It has been well publicised that a significant proportion of offenders require basic literacy and numeracy education. Less well known is the need for English as a second language courses.”