Secretary of State for Justice (): Today I am publishing the
government's Youth Justice White Paper, ‘Cutting Youth Crime,
Changing Young Lives', which sets out our plan to reform the
youth justice system in England and Wales so that it intervenes
earlier, responds more consistently, and does more to protect the
public.
Over the past two decades, sustained efforts across the system
have led to very significant reductions in the number of children
entering the formal youth justice system and the number of
children in custody. As a result, the system is now working with
a much smaller but far more complex cohort, including many
children who face multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities
including substance misuse, children who are victims of
exploitation, and in some cases children who present a serious
risk of harm to others. However, the systems and structures
designed for an earlier era have not kept pace. This limits our
ability to prevent escalation, reduce reoffending and keep
victims and communities safe.
This government is clear about the balance we must strike.
Children are still developing and have a strong capacity to
change, and the system must respond accordingly. But avoiding
unnecessary criminalisation must never come at the expense of
public protection. Where children's behaviour causes harm, or
where risks escalate, the system must act decisively. Firm,
timely and proportionate intervention is essential both to
protect the public and to support children to change course.
We will strengthen early intervention to prevent risky behaviour
or offending from escalating. This includes continuing to invest
in the Turnaround programme, improving alignment with wider
services that support children at risk, and taking action against
the adults who exploit children and draw them into crime. We will
also publish a strengthened national protocol to reduce the
unnecessary criminalisation of children in care and care leavers,
while ensuring that risks are identified and managed effectively.
Where offending does occur, children must receive the right
response at the right time. We will reform the youth
out-of-court-resolution framework to improve public confidence
and ensure interventions address the drivers of offending. We
will take a fundamental look at the function and purpose of
criminal courts for children, pilot new problem-solving Youth
Intervention Courts, and develop specialist training requirements
for lawyers representing children. We will ensure custodial
remand is used appropriately and fairly, and modernise the
sentencing framework to support public protection and
rehabilitation. Alongside this, we will deliver proportionate
reform of the childhood criminal records regime, so that people
who have turned away from offending do not face lifelong
consequences for childhood mistakes.
We will strengthen local youth justice services so they are
equipped to manage risk and deliver effective interventions for
today's cohort. We will reform youth justice service oversight
and funding arrangements and we are reforming the role of the
Youth Justice Board to sharpen its focus on continuous
improvement, so that children receive consistently high-quality
support wherever they live. We will back innovation and
modernisation through a new Youth Justice Innovation Fund, new
devolution arrangements and better use of technology.
This government is clear that, in some cases, custody is a
necessary and appropriate response to protect the public. But we
must ensure children come out better than they went in. We are
taking action to improve safety, safeguarding and education
across the youth custodial estate, while setting a clear
long-term direction away from large, outdated institutions,
towards smaller, more rehabilitative settings that better support
children to turn their lives around. We will set out further
detail in a Youth Custody Transformation Plan in the autumn.
Taken together, these reforms represent a decisive shift for
youth justice. A system that intervenes early to prevent
escalation, provides firm and decisive community responses, and
uses custody where necessary, is a system that will cut youth
crime and change young lives.
The White Paper is being laid before Parliament today.
Cutting youth crime. Changing
young lives
