Youth Justice News
| Author | Marcus Roberts |
| DOI | 10.1177/147322540200200306 |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Youth Justice News
Compiled by Marcus Roberts
Correspondence: Dr Marcus Roberts, Nacro, 169 Clapham Road, London SW9 OPU.
Email: Marcus.RobertsVnacro.org.uk
New Youth Inclusion and Support Panels will Target Children as Young
as Eight
On 22 October, Lord Warner, Chairman of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), announced new
measures targeting very young children judged to be ‘at risk of offending’. Speaking at the
Association of Chief Police Officers Youth Justice Conference in Bristol, he announced the
roll out of ten pilots of so-called Youth Inclusion and Support Panels (YISPs) in areas of the
country with the highest levels of street crime. YISPs will comprise a range of specialists from
local youth offending teams, police, schools, health and social services. It is intended that they
should identify those 8-13 year olds displaying problematic behaviour and who are ‘at risk’of
offending (for example, where there is evidence of drug misuse, mental health and family
problems and/or anti-social behaviour). The YISPs will be a joint initiative of the Youth Justice
Board, ACPO and the government’s Children and Young People’s Unit.
Accepting that the proposals could prove controversial, Lord Warner commented: ‘These
young people by definition will be well known to the relevant agencies already in one form or
another. The panels will be about intervening early so that as they grow up these young people
are no longer labelled by their community or the agencies as problem children. It is my
experience that many families would welcome support with their children if only it was
available at an earlier stage and before problems escalate.’
The Home Office Minister, Hilary Benn, responded to the YJB initiative by announcing the
extension of parenting orders. He reported that about 2,000 have been issued by the courts to
date, but expressed concern that 81 per cent of those attending parenting classes were mothers,
not fathers. The extended order will require more fathers to attend.
For the Conservatives, Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home Secretary, felt that the YJB scheme
was too little, too late. ‘The problems have already become intractable by the age of eight’,he
commented, ‘intervention is required earlier’. Other critics of the proposals argued that, on the
contrary, there was a danger that these panels, by involving the youth justice system with
children at this very young age, would effectively be lowering the age of criminal responsibility
still further.
Further information is available on the Youth Justice Board website: www.youth-justice-board.gov.uk
Youth nuisance
Also speaking at the Association of Chief Police Officers Youth Justice Conference, Home
Office Minister John Denham, focused on the problem of ‘youth nuisance’.‘If there is one
type of behaviour –one type of action –that does more to undermine public confidence and
more to raise the fear of crime out of all proportion to the reality –it is youth nuisance’,he
claimed. He complained that professionals working for youth agencies were too ‘inward facing’
in their attitudes, and were failing to tackle the problem. The Minister concluded:
Ninety per cent of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships now have an anti-social behaviour
co-ordinator, but the extent to which they are supported by a real commitment from across their own local
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