Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I support much of the Bill, but I want to raise two separate matters. I shall be brief, because of the time available. First, I should like to mention sex. Clause 64(6)(b) mentions an image of an act"““which appears to result…in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals””." I agree with virtually all the clause, and I understand the motivation behind Liz Longhurst's campaign, but my problem is with the phrase ““appears to””. That will catch all sorts of things that it should not. I have several examples, but time precludes me from raising them. The Government should consider that sub-paragraph, which could be problematic for the future. Secondly, I want to raise the much more important issue of children. In the Bill and the notes on it, there are some 15 new conditions and requirements on youth rehabilitation orders—plus another one: the Secretary of State can do what he likes and set another condition on youngsters ““by order””. A lot of the conditions are okay in themselves, but the approach is unbalanced. For example, a youth offender team manager stated:"““During the seven years that YOTs have been established, apart from limited finance to establish ISSPs, there has been no additional funding made available to enhance the quality of work with those already in the system. This is despite a 26 per cent. increase nationally in youth court business over the past four years.””" Rod Morgan, the former chair of the Youth Justice Board, says:"““We are criminalising more and more children and young people—an increase of 26 per cent. between 2002 and 2006—in a period when all the evidence suggests that the incidence of youth offending fell.””" In June, I received a letter from the Howard League for Penal Reform that stated:"““In statistics published by the Council of Europe in 2005, England and Wales was found to have jailed 2,274 children””—" the figure has gone up since then—"““compared to 1,456 in Germany, 628 in France, 73 children in the Netherlands and nine in Norway.""The profligate use of prison for children, the infliction of pain and injury to control children behind closed doors, child deaths in custody, lack of physical exercise and the use of segregation blocks that might be said to resemble modern day dungeons, are all ways in which the treatment of children in custody amounts to child abuse and in some cases may actually be criminal…In 2002, when considering the last report of the UK government, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that the government had to""'establish a system of juvenile justice that fully integrates into its legislation, policies and practice the provisions and principles of the Convention', including by raising the minimum age for criminal responsibility, ensuring 'that no child can be tried as an adult irrespective of the circumstances or gravity of his/her offence', ensuring 'that detention of children is used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time and that children are separated from adults in detention'””." That just has not happened. What we have is a cluttering of the system with relatively minor cases, too many prosecutions instead of pre-court settlements, and insufficient discretion—for example, for the police to deal with matters in situ, or for youth offender teams, or for courts to filter out cases where children's welfare needs are readily apparent and should take priority. Cases such as those involving mental health or family neglect should be diverted away from the court system. Instead, we have adult Crown courts used for children, detention alongside adults, some sentences that are worse for children than for adults for the same offence, and restraint to such an extent that in a recent 18-month period there were more than 2,000 injuries to children in custody. The Howard League for Penal Reform says that, since January 2002, six children have died in custody. That amounts to degrading punishments, and detention not as a last resort, as it should be. The age of consent is the lowest in Europe: 10 in England and Wales and eight in Scotland. A 10-year-old is presumed to be as criminally responsible as a fully mature adult. The Government insist that they will not revisit the age of criminal responsibility, but I strongly believe that there should be a proper review. There should, at least, be a layered response to children who commit offences. The welfare of the child should take precedent over being punitive and the child's continued development still needs to be nurtured, whatever the punishment. Rod Morgan argues that some changes for the better can be made administratively, but we have yet to see them and the Bill is an unbalanced approach to dealing with child offenders. Again, the Government should think again.