In February 2014 the government published its response to the
consultation paper Transforming Youth
Custody: Putting Education at the Heart of Detention, revealing a shift in framework
of custodial detention for young offenders in England. As of February 2014, under the Criminal
Justice and Courts Bill, the government proposes one of the largest in modern
reforms of youth justice; the introduction of a framework of secure colleges to
house and educate all young offenders.
The issue in brief.
With almost 1,200 young offenders in custody in England and
Wales the government have decided to tackle high reoffending rates and
expensive secure accommodation facilities with the introduction of new Secure
Colleges.
Reportedly 71% of young offenders leave custody and go on to
reoffend within 12 months of their release and with an average annual cost for
one young offender of £100,000 it has been recognised that the current
framework is not having an efficient reduction of recidivism or cost value. Furthermore
with in some cases only 12 hours of education provided a week in Young Offender
Institute’s (YOI’s) and over half of 15-17 year olds have literacy and numeracy
levels of a 7-11 year old, it is evident that the current system is not
preparing young offenders with the skills they require for successful
rehabilitation and reintegration.
Nick Clegg MP summarises for BBC News (2014) “Some offenders
spend less than one day a week in the classroom. By increasing the amount of
time young offenders spend learning, we can help them move away from crime,
take responsibility for their actions, and rebuild their lives.”
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) investigated the hours
of education received by young offenders in YOI’s and data sourced from a
freedom of information request exposed that only 1 in 9 young offenders were
actually provided with the 15 hours of contracted education a week. Below is a
graph produced by the CSJ to demonstrate an average numbers of hours of
education provided per week for each young offender in HM Prison Service Young
Offenders’ Institutions in 2011-12.
(Click to Enlarge Photo)
Source: Centre for
Social Justice, 2014.
In some cases the average hours are as low as 8-10 hours a
week in contrast with the average 30 hours provided in mainstream education.
Read more about the Centre for Social Justice’s
investigation HERE
The current
‘secure estate’.
Currently there are three types of secure accommodation
available for young offenders sentenced to detention in custody.
·
Secure
Children’s Homes (SCH’s)
SCH’s provide secure accommodation run by
local authorities for 10-14 year olds, varying in size from 8 – 40 bed units.
These offer 30 hours of education and training a week and cost on average
£200,000 a year per young offender. As of June 2014 there are 105 young
offenders in SCH’s
·
Secure
Training Centres (STC’s)
STC’s accommodate 12-17 year olds in larger
units of 50-80 and currently house 261 young offenders. These are all run by
private companies and again provide 20 hours of education and training a week.
STCs are also costly, on average £160,000 a year per young offender.
·
Young
Offender Institutes (YOI’s)
YOI’s houses young offenders between 15- 21
years old in wings of 30-60, much more like the adult prison setting. They are
run by HM Prison Services and private companies and are contracted to provide
15 hours of education per week, costing on average £60,000 per young offender,
per year. With the highest proportion of offenders (738 as of June 2014) and
the lowest time allocated for education and training purposes (even for those
required by legislation to be in education) it is not difficult to see how the
reoffending rates from YOIs are particularly high.
For more information on youth custody data click HERE
“Putting Education
at the Heart of Custody”.
Under the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill (2014) the government
have proposed reforms to youth justice system to improve public protection and
reduce reoffending. These include plans for the introduction of a Pathfinder
Secure College to pilot a framework for new secure educational establishments
to replace the previous secure estate. With the primary aims to improve
outcomes and reduce costs they put forward an education centred, intense
provision following individual learning plans for each offender in purpose
built secure accommodation. The colleges will comprise of classrooms,
workshops, flexible learning spaces alongside living units for young offenders
and intended to house all young offenders (12-17 years old) however separating
them by age, gender and vulnerability. Initially the pilot Pathfinder Secure
College will be opened in the East Midlands in the spring of 2017 with a 320
place establishment.
(Click to Enlarge Photo)
This image represents
the vision of the new pathfinder secure college, a specifically built
establishment intended to house and provide education to young offenders in the
East Midlands from 2017. Source: Ministry of Justice, 2014.
Secure Colleges aim to integrate multiple agencies to
provide a “broad and intensive curriculum to challenge and engage the full
range of ages and abilities” (Ministry of Justice, 2014, p.5). With a focus on
numeracy and literacy skills, combined with vocational training opportunities
and development of interpersonal and practical life skills in an educational
setting. It is hoped that “this will
ensure that young people leave with the motivation, self-discipline and independence
to commit further studies, training or employment, and to steer clear of crime”
(Ministry of Justice, 2014, p.6).
If this scheme is successful then the long term goal is the
introduction of secure colleges extending across England and Wales and
establishing a network to serve individual regions, eventually withdrawing
costly STC’s SCH’s and underperforming YOI’s. The government also hopes that by
distributing resources and funding amongst fewer, larger institutions it will
be possible to make use of funding more efficiently and bring down the
‘operating cost’ down “significantly below the £100,00 current average”
(Ministry of Justice, 2014, p.5).
With the expected opening of the first secure college just
under three years away the government proposes changes and improvements to the
current secure estate to facilitate youth custody’s main aims – a reduction in
reoffending and an increasingly education centred rehabilitation. This intends
to provide long term adjustments to youth custody provision which will aid the
transition to the new secure colleges.
Primarily it is has been identified that the education
provisions in YOI’s are failing to provide the educational requirements for
this type of youth custody accommodation, “…consultation responses reaffirmed
that it is in YOI’s that education provision is the poorest” (Ministry of
Justice, 2014, p.9). In order to improve this new contracts are being drawn up
with educational providers and are due to come into force from November 2014.
Collaboration and co-ordination between theses education providers, National
Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Youth Justice Board (YJB) is
required to maximise the learning opportunities and broaden the curriculum
available to young offenders in YOI’s.
“The culture of YOI’s needs to change from being places of
detention to places of learning” (Ministry of Justice, 2014, p.9). YOI’s
accommodation and services are much closer to the adult prison system in
comparison with STC’s and SCH’s, it is suggested that a change in this culture,
perpetuated by an integration of education and training delivery with other
custodial services. Furthermore, head teachers and senior leadership teams will
be posted in YOI’s to service education delivery (these roles will also be
integral to the running of secure colleges) working with NOMS who overall will
be managing education provision in public sector YOI’s.
Current STC and SCH provision will continue to be available
until secure college capacity has been established enough to transfer custody
accommodations.
Finally, resettlement is a key issue to address in the
changing framework of the youth custody. The emphasis of resettlement has been
identified in order to support the young offender in rehabilitation from day
one. Instead of the process beginning near the end of a period of detention,
the youth criminal justice system will
be integrate their communication and services to prepare and work towards a
resettlement plan for each young offender. They plan to do this by vital
changes to sentence planning and casework processes in custody. Additionally to
aid resettlement education, training or employment will be secured for young
offenders to start immediately upon their release. This aims to continue the
development of skills and learning that has taken place within secure colleges
into the community and will be bolstered by more effective use of ‘release on
temporary licence’. ROTL allows a risk assessed young offender to be granted
leave of custody for an agreed time to undertake activities to support their
resettlement such as; attending school, college or job interviews, visiting
housing placements and enrolling on apprenticeships.
The proposed changes to the framework of youth justice
present a shift in focus from detention to education centred rehabilitation. It
aims to tackle high reoffending rates and low literacy and numeracy levels of
young offenders by introducing a network of secure colleges built purposely to
accommodate and educate. A drastic overhaul of our current secure estate
structure is due to take place with the withdrawal of STC’s, SCH’s and a
reduction in YOI’s; although in the lead up to this there a number of suggested
improvements in education provisions, providers, delivery and an overall more
efficient integration of current services.
With the statistics of lack of education and reoffending so
shockingly high it is clear that changes are required and the simple logic that
increased high quality educational opportunities for young offenders will need
to be successfully implemented over the next 3-5 years in order to achieve the
primary goals for youth justice set out by the current government.
To access and read Transforming
Youth Custody: Putting Education at the Heart of Detention, Government
response to the consultation click HERE
S. Allen.
B.A. (Hons) Criminology
