Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I, too, heartily support the amendment moved by—I shall persist in calling him my noble friend—the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. The amendment recognises one of the essential qualities of a young person’s offending: it is essentially chaotic, impulsive and not thought through. The mistake currently being made in the legislation is neither to allow for that nor offer a measure of flexibility to those people with responsibility for managing, helping and dealing with these young people; namely, the youth offending team officer or other person. This is an important safeguard. Those working with these young people are the ones who know them well and are therefore in the best position to advise whether they should be given, if you like, another chance. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has already given us figures to show how extremely successful these orders can be, and another positive aspect is that youth offending panels, to whom young offenders are referred back, also engage young people’s communities in what is going wrong. That creates an important dialogue which in turn makes possible the kind of restorative alternatives that have been suggested. For all these reasons, it is important that the Government should look at this seriously once again.