Dealing with Young Offenders
Persistent Young Offender Pledge
One of the Government’s manifesto pledges in 1997 was to reduce the time taken to deal with Persistent Young Offenders (PYOs).
PYOs are defined as young people between 10 and 17 years who have been sentenced on at least 3 separate occasions within the previous 3 years.
The Government was concerned that the average time from arrest to sentence for a PYO was 142 days, hence the pledge to reduce this by half to 71 days.
During the lifetime of the PYO pledge, Lincolnshire has achieved a great deal of success in reducing its arrest to sentence average. In January 1997, our average was 195 days, compared to the figure of 59 days for the first quarter of 2004.
Lincolnshire’s improvement has been such that it has met the PYO pledge in 12 of the last 14 months.
How have we achieved this? By working together. Good working relationships have been forged between the Police, CPS, Probation and, of course, the Youth Offending Service. All of these agencies continue to work hard to address those issues that could cause unnecessary delays in the court process.
The hard work of all the agencies has resulted in reducing the average time from arrest to charge of a PYO from 13 to 4 days and reducing the time taken for PYO warrants to be executed by the Police.
Organisations involved: Lincolnshire Police, Crown Prosecution Service, National Probation Service
Youth Offending Service deals robustly with 10-17 year olds
The Intensive Surveillance and Supervision Programme (ISSP) was launched in Lincolnshire in October 2003. It works with young people who are at risk of receiving short custodial sentences and deals effectively with high risk, often chaotic young offenders.
Those who have completed the programme have responded positively to the intervention from the agencies involved and from the structure which the programme provides. It is not suitable for all young people and for some the only alternative is custody. However it does give young people the opportunity to move away from offending and to make amends to the communities in which they live.
Young people will usually be on the ISSP programme for six months. The first three months entail structured contact of at least 25 hours a week, with access to support in the evening and at weekends. After three months, the number of hours can be reduced to a minimum of 5 per week, depending on progress. The programme subsequently runs seven days per week, 365 days per year. In many cases, The Lincolnshire Youth Offending Service is delivering numbers of hours far in excess of the required minimum.
The Intensive Surveillance and Supervision Programme includes work on:
- Education and training
- Restorative Justice
- Changing offending behaviour
- Interpersonal skills
- Family support
- Suitable accommodation
- Mental health
- Drugs or alcohol misuse
- Constructive leisure / recreation
- Counselling / mentoring
- Other health problems
The ISSP scheme seeks to maximise local provision, resources, cultural and ethnic provisions, and any other services which could assist in meeting the needs of the young people.
The other key component of ISSP is community surveillance. The objective is to ensure that the young people themselves are aware that their behaviour is being checked and to provide reassurance to the community that their whereabouts is being monitored.
One (or more) of the following forms of surveillance is used:
- Tracking
- Electronic tagging
- Voice verification
- Intelligence-led policing
For those young offenders who fail to comply with the programme, enforcement is rapid and appropriate. They are returned to court, where the next sentencing option could well be custody.
Success to date: Rev Woods;
‘He did a very good job; I could see a significant improvement in his attitude throughout the course of his reparation. I would like to have worked with him for longer, and would be very happy about having another young person in the future'.
