I was on the Committee when this matter was debated, and the Bill contains a number of provisions that concern me and my hon. Friends. One of those relates to the secure colleges that the Government seem to think are a panacea or solution for young people who get involved in the criminal justice system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, we heard from countless experts and not a single one said that secure colleges as envisaged by the Government were right or would work. There were questions about whether the college would be segregated and how large the units should be. From the Government proposals it seems that the secure colleges will be large institutions, and it is not guaranteed that segregation will occur and that girls will be in one environment and boys in another. There was not even any information about what will actually happen.
The experts accept that there is no harm in having an educational establishment, but it must be a small unit in which children are looked after. It should be almost like a home, but obviously with an element of rehabilitation and education thrown in. At the moment, the way the secure colleges are envisaged makes it seem as if the old-fashioned borstals are being brought back. We all know that they were completely useless and a waste of time, and they did not rehabilitate or help young people. The new secure colleges are going down the same line.
The Government have not said whether they are willing to put in the resources needed to run a proper establishment for young people, and teach them to mend their ways and stop committing criminal offences. There are issues such as restraint and what methods will be used, and how we deal with young people who misbehave a bit but do not commit offences and how we tackle violent or disorderly behaviour in the secure colleges.
A whole lot of things are missing. That is one reason why many people on the Committee—certainly Labour Members—were concerned about the secure colleges
because there is not enough information about them. With all the debates that have taken place, I hope the Ministry of Justice and the Lord Chancellor—I know he is here—will listen and that when the secure colleges are introduced, they will be properly checked and resourced, and that they will deal with issues relating to young people. It is well known that a lot of young people who end up in the criminal justice system often come from broken homes or abusive families, and they often have physical and mental health issues. They need to be looked after, so that they can become good citizens and not continue to be a problem for the state.
Punishment is of course an element of dealing with someone who commits a crime, but another should be rehabilitation. When someone commits a crime, everyone says, “Throw the book at them. Give them the longest possible sentence.” The idea is that that will stop them committing crimes. They may not be able to do anything while they are in prison, but we know that many people who come out of prison end up back there. From my experience of representing young people, and indeed defendants generally, the last thing in their mind when they commit a crime is that they will get five, seven or even 20 years for it. They do not think about the possible sentence: they just see the opportunity that has arisen or they commit offences because of their background.
We have been obsessed in the past few years with the idea that longer and longer sentences of imprisonment will stop the problem of crime, but they will not. We spend thousands of pounds incarcerating an individual, but if we spent our resources at an earlier stage in people’s lives to help and support their families, we would get better balanced citizens. The punitive approach of the criminal justice system should in fact be more about rehabilitation. Until a couple of centuries ago, someone who stole a sheep would be hanged, but that did not stop people from committing that offence or other minor offences with the same punishment.