About the YJB
Alternatives to Custody
The YJB aims to support the youth justice system in reducing the size of the under-18 custodial population by 10% by 2008, through the implementation of the minimising the use of custody work programme.
To help meet this aim, we fund and support alternatives to custody for more serious offences and prolific offenders, including the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP) and intensive fostering.
ISSP
ISSP was devised following evidence that suggested 3% of young offenders were responsible for 25% of all youth crime. In response to this, since 2001, the YJB has invested approximately £80 million to establish ISSP across England and Wales as the most robust alternative to custody.
ISSP is available 365 days a year and is designed to:
- reduce the frequency and seriousness of offending in the target groups
- tackle the underlying needs of offenders that give rise to offending, with a particular emphasis on education and training
- provide reassurance to communities through close surveillance (using electronic tagging), backed up by rigorous enforcement.
ISSP consists of up to 25 hours of supervision per week for the first three months. It can be a condition of bail, a Supervision Order, Community Rehabilitation Order, or the community portion of a custodial sentence (Detention and Training Order or Section 90/91). It is not a court order.
In 2005, the YJB published a report on ISSP, by Oxford University’s Centre for Criminology, that showed that young people given ISSP commit 39 per cent fewer crimes in the two years after starting the programme. The seriousness of their offending was reduced by 13 per cent. The programme was also found to have a significant effect on young people’s educational status and to work particularly well with young women.
Intensive fostering
The YJB funds the intensive fostering programme, an alternative to custody for children and young people whose home life is felt to have contributed significantly to their offending behaviour.
Like other community penalties, intensive fostering aims to hold a young person to account for their crimes, while ensuring they get the support they need within their community to address factors which may have contributed to their offending behaviour. The programme provides highly intensive care for each individual for up to 12 months, as well as a comprehensive programme of support for their family. It is based on a programme widely used in the United States called Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care.
The intensive fostering scheme is currently being piloted with foster care providers in Hampshire and Staffordshire and ten London boroughs. Placements of young people in homes began in early 2005.
Intensive fostering emerged as part of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which makes a provision to include foster care as a requirement of a Supervision Order.