Custody will always be necessary for a small minority of children and young people who offend, because of the seriousness of their offence, the frequency of their offending or the risk that they may pose to the public. However, the YJB wants to do all it can to ensure that it is only used as a last resort, and that it is safe, secure and addresses the causes of offending behaviour.
The YJB has responsibility for:
- purchasing all the places within the secure estate for children and young people
- placing all young people sentenced or remanded to custody
- setting standards and monitoring the performance of each custodial establishment.
We spend around 60% of our budget on providing custodial places. The table below shows how many places in each type of custodial establishment we purchase.
Number of places available within the secure estate (2009/10)
*As at 1 July 2009 when the new contracts came into effect.
Strategy
Our Strategy for the Secure Estate for Children and Young People, published in 2005, and the Update on the Strategy for the Secure Estate for Children and Young People described a set of principles and plans for the three year period of 2005/06 to 2008/09.
While the plans have now been overtaken by the YJB Corporate and Business Plan 2009/10, the principles still apply and the 2005/06 to 2007/08 strategy acknowledges that they were achievable over a period of time that would extend beyond the planning period of that document. Given this, we are continuing to work to the principles set out in the Strategy for the Secure Estate for Children and Young People for 2005/06 to 2007/08 as an interim position while progress is made on the new strategy.
Responsibilities
We are also responsible for placing children and young people under 18, sentenced or remanded to custody by the courts, in appropriate secure accommodation. Click to find out more about placing young people in custody.
We set standards for secure facilities and monitor their performance. To find out more about how we monitor the performance of the secure estate, visit our page on monitoring to read about how we measure each establishment’s performance against the standards we set them and the terms of their contract.
Principles
We believe that all establishments within the secure estate for children and young people should:
- have a culture centred on the child and young person
- be run by staff committed to working with children and young people, who are adequately trained in this area of work, and who have completed nationally approved training in effective practice work with young people who offend
- minimise the likelihood of harm to young people through integrated and rigorous safeguarding measures that include:
- well-developed self-harm, suicide and bullying prevention programmes
- measures to prevent harm from adults
- provision of independent advocacy services
- provide high-quality physical and mental health and substance misuse services
- be separate, to the greatest extent possible, from facilities for adults
- comprise relatively small living units, even if these are within larger institutions
- have regimes that are fundamentally geared to the individual educational, training, recreational, cultural and personal development needs of children and young people, and that are not disrupted by unnecessary transfers
- have strong links with external programmes, with in-reach and outreach provision for appropriate young offenders
- employ an approach to behaviour management that emphasises, to the greatest possible extent, positive encouragement and reward rather than physical restraint or negative sanctions
- cater for the diverse characteristics and equally valid needs of young offenders in a manner that does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or religion
- be located as close to the young people's communities and community ties as possible, both in distance, and in terms of transport links and accessibility
- be characterised by end-to-end sentence planning arrangements focused from the outset on the resettlement of the young person in the community
- foster, to the greatest extent possible and consistent with their well-being, young offenders’ links with their parents/carers and community, and the community-based agencies that dealt with them before they entered custody and with whom they will have contact after their release
- be subject to regular inspection and continuous accountability arrangements.