Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 177ZA: 177ZA: Clause 191, page 135, line 22, at end insert— ““( ) Where the responsible authority makes a disclosure about any child or young person below the age of 18 under this section— (a) the case must be referred to the local children’s safeguarding board and the decision to disclose taken in conjunction with them, and (b) a management plan must be drawn up to include a risk assessment of the consequences of disclosure for the child and steps to address these.”” The noble Baroness said: I would like to acknowledge that the amendment is supported by the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, the Lucy Faithful Foundation and the NCH. It expresses our view that there are inadequate safeguards for those children who commit sexual offences against other children. Our concern is based on the inappropriateness of using adult-focused legislation that, in terms of disclosure, treats young people as adult sex offenders. In our early debates on Part 1, which concerned the bulk of measures regarding young people, many noble Lords spoke about the appropriateness, or otherwise, of recognising that young people, by virtue of their youth, should be treated differently. Our desire to see a difference in treatment between adults and young people is not simply based on age alone. As we know, large numbers of young people who encounter the criminal justice system come to it from backgrounds of great disadvantage, including factors such as learning difficulties, behavioural problems, domestic violence, sexual abuse or essentially having the misfortune to come from a dysfunctional family. In the case of sex offenders, even if such factors do not figure as mitigating ones in their defence, their moral and emotional development may be such that they do not, or cannot, rationalise about their wrongdoing and the harm that they may have inflicted on the other child or young person. Therefore, they may be extremely vulnerable and the interventions employed by the state in regard to their crime require a different approach from that needed for adults. I turn to some key factors about young people who display sexually harmful behaviour. First, there are concerns about the scale of the problem. According to the charities which support the amendment—and I have mentioned them—we do not know how many children display sexually harmful behaviour. It is likely to be underreported by parents, carers and professionals working for children because a great deal of harm can come from simply suspecting a young person of something that they may not be able to validate or prove. Moreover, there is no central method of data collection on young people who sexually harm. Research from criminal justice statistics shows that between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of all alleged sexual abuse involves young perpetrators. I understand that approximately one-third of sexual offenders in contact with the criminal justice system each year are adolescents. We have the profile of young people who display sexually harmful behaviour, and we know that in terms of this profile a significant proportion of service users across programmes are described as having a learning disability. I have already touched on that point, but it is worrying that we do not know what the parameters of the problem are. We find that the majority of these children and young people have been or are being sexually, physically and/or emotionally abused themselves. Furthermore—and this is particularly pertinent to the clause under review— consistent findings indicate that the majority of children who display sexually harmful behaviour do not go on to commit sexual offences as adults. In other words, where there are interventions in the aftermath of committing these offences, there is every hope that the behaviour might be changed. In fact, the success rate for interventions among young offenders is higher than that for adults. Moving on to specific concerns about the use of disclosure in relation to children and young people, we understand that the current MAPPA guidance makes no reference to the disclosure of an offender’s details where the individual is under the age of 18. We consider this to be a significant shortcoming. We believe that safeguards must be in place when disclosure of information about children is made, including specific guidance. The consequences of disclosure can be devastating for children and can lead to bullying, harassment, discrimination and the loss of future opportunities. It may be counterproductive to disclose the offence details of young people where the offending is in the past and where they have received treatment and have been assessed as no longer presenting a risk. Disclosure after rehabilitation can only lead to harm and may bring little future risk deferral. Children have a much greater ability to develop out of their offending behaviour and disclosure may mitigate against change by labelling and stigmatising them. I turn now to the proposals for the four pilot programmes that will deal with adult sex offenders. Even if the pilot studies are successful, we nevertheless wish to be reassured that there would have been an empirical demonstration that the system can operate safely in relation to adults before it is extended to children and young people. I beg to move.