Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Since my noble friend Lord Adebowale is not in his place and as I have my name to the amendment, I hope that I may say what I was going to say anyway in support of it. This amendment and the two following amendments to which I shall be speaking, Amendments 177B and 177C, refer to a group of offenders who traditionally have been disregarded for too long, certainly as far as the Prison Service is concerned: namely, those who are over the age of 18, and therefore no longer children, and those in the young adult group who are aged either 21 or 25. That latter age occurs increasingly in people’s thoughts. My noble friend proposes that a community supervision requirement for offenders aged 18 to 25 should be earnestly considered. In 1997, when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, I conducted a thematic review, which I entitled Young Prisoners, because I was enormously concerned that prisoners in this age group were simply not being looked after, particularly in view of the arrival of the Youth Justice Board. The Youth Justice Board was successful because it laid down conditions for the treatment of children in custody and in the community. However, in custody, in what were called split sites, where there were people between the ages of 15 and 18 and 18 and 21, the facilities were not sufficient to provide adequate support for both groups. However, to honour the requirements of the contracts laid down by the Youth Justice Board, the Prison Service made the facilities available first for the use of children and then what was left was available for young offenders aged 18 to 21. Unfortunately, this meant that very little provision was left in many places—little educational and employment provision and little use of gym facilities. In particular, given the demands of the Children Act, staff were not available to do much with these prisoners and far too many of them spent all their time in their cells doing nothing. I advocated three things in 1997. My report states: "““While there is a policy section, no one in the Prison Service has operational responsibility for young people: consequently there is an absence of overall vision and leadership in the development of regimes to challenge criminal attitudes and behaviour and prepare young offenders for a future free from offending””." The report also states: "““Young adults should be separately managed by a reshaped organisation within the Prison Service which should be led and managed by a Director of Young Prisoners accountable to the Director General for all establishments or parts of establishments holding young adults””," and that: "““Units holding young adult prisoners should have performance criteria related to specific outcomes for young prisoners, some of which should be shared with other Criminal Justice and community agencies””." Unfortunately, absolutely nothing has happened. There is still a policy branch in NOMS, but there is no one responsible and accountable for these people. That applies in NOMS, and therefore, more worryingly, both to prison and probation. There is no one responsible and accountable for seeing that proper programmes are designed for this group. Following the riots, the Prison Reform Trust published a splendid document this year called Old Enough to Know Better, about young adults in the criminal justice system. The report stated: "““The criminal justice system is failing to divert impressionable young men and women from falling into a pattern of offending in the first place and doing little to help them turn their lives around when they do. The independent panel investigating the cause of the riots has specifically identified the lack of support for young people moving from the youth to the adult justice system””." In other words, although change was called for in 1997, nothing is there. If there is nothing there, we must expect problems with this group—problems that have been graphically outlined by the independent panel investigating the riots, quite apart from consistent reports from my successors as Chief Inspectors of Prisons. I should like to quote from the last such report that I read, which was about HM Prison Isis—the newest prison opened by the Prison Service, which is uniquely catering for young men aged 18 to 25. This is what the chief inspector said: "““The prison had made progress since it was first opened but there was still a long way to go … At the heart of the challenges … were poor staff-prisoner relationships … Overall, too many staff appeared to lack the confidence or motivation to deliver their responsibilities effectively … The most disappointing consequence … was its impact on prisoners’ education, training and work. Isis is a new, purpose-built, training prison for young men, opened at a time when the government has made keeping prisoners productively busy and occupied a key part of its prisons agenda. That being the case, maximising prisoners’ involvement in education, training and work should be a key objective for every member of staff. This was not so. Despite some good quality provision, there was no overarching strategy to ensure the prison delivered its central training role. There were insufficient activity places but of those available, only 60% were occupied and punctuality was poor … The prison claimed that prisoners spent an average of six and a half hours out of their cells a day, but we found that working prisoners could achieve five and a half hours and some prisoners as little as two hours. We found half of all the prisoners locked in their cells during the working part of the day””." If that is the state in prisons where still no one is responsible—and there you have a purpose-built prison designed for this group, where half the prisoners are locked in their cells during the working part of a day, the working prisoners are only achieving something like five and a half hours, and the facilities are not being used—there is clearly a problem. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Adebowale, who is now in his place, is talking not about the prisons but particularly about the community services. The reason I mentioned prisons first was because throughout these Committee proceedings and in the document, Breaking the Cycle, on which a lot of the Bill is based, getting people into effective community sentences has been mentioned as the best way of achieving the aim of reducing the prison population. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Adebowale will mention an initiative which shows great promise if it is allowed to be developed. I refer to the intensive alternative-to-custody schemes run by Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire probation trusts, tailored to the specific needs of young adults. The lesson is that the present system is incapable of providing the goods in prison. If we have the classic example of intensive alternatives to custody being provided by the probation service locally, in the community, surely we should develop it. I am sure that that is what my noble friend will be saying and it is certainly what I support. Those programmes are achieving good compliance rates, and experienced probation officers to whom I have spoken say that they present to them their first real opportunity to create the requirements that will change offending behaviour. They are also strongly supported by the local magistrates in Manchester to whom I have spoken; I have not spoken to magistrates in West Yorkshire. Bearing in mind that this group has always been a problem because they are neither children nor adults—they are in between and need to be prevented from going down the long road of adult crime—I return to what I have said on many occasions in this House on many aspects of prison: for heaven’s sake, please can we have someone in charge responsible and accountable for seeing that proper programmes are conducted? Unless we have someone like that, nothing will happen. The policy branch to which I referred in 1997 is there. Nothing is happening. You can lay down policy until you are blue in the face, but unless someone is responsible and accountable for delivering it, it will not happen. This group needs it. We have the example of the intensive alternatives to custody. Please let us develop this for this age group in every probation trust in the country. At the same time, let us take on board the lessons from the inspection report on HMP Isis and make certain that, where they are in custody, there is proper provision and none of them is left idle in their cell, but that they are presented with full, purposeful and active days, which are the only thing that will enable them to live useful and law-abiding lives. I beg to move.