Bethan Jenkins AC/AM Blog

THIS is my speech from yesterday in the Senedd, on the report that the communities and culture committee that I sit on carried out regarding the young people in the secure estate/ discussion on the youth justice system.

Bethan Jenkins: Like the other speakers, I thank Sandy Mewies and the team that worked with us on the committee to ensure that this inquiry was a success. I had my eyes opened as did my fellow Members, I am sure, when we visited the prisons and young offender institutions; we visited Hillside Secure Centre and Parc prison in Bridgend to see how these young people are treated.

I echo what Sandy said at the beginning, that the most important point arising out of the report is that we sincerely need to look at devolving the youth criminal justice system to Wales. It is not just an ideological point; it is because the priorities of the UK Government are clearly different from those that we are trying to follow in Wales. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is enshrined here; we want to put children at the heart of all that we do, and previous UK Governments have been intent on incarcerating young people—I am not sure whether Ken Clarke will change that; time will tell—before fully considering their rights as children. We should all be thinking about that here. We have to acknowledge children’s rights.

I feel passionately about devolving youth criminal justice, because we can then look at alternative ways of dealing with offenders, such as restorative justice, which have been trialled in some places in Wales but which are not implemented fully across the length and breadth of the country.

I say that also because, in evidence to the committee, a representative of the Howard League for Penal Reform said that he was astounded that Assembly Members had to go to English prisons to talk to Welsh children; it is ironic that we have to go to England to see Welsh children and to talk to them about their experiences. That, in itself, was eye opening for me, and made me think much more about how we treat our young children in Wales. These children do not have proper access to mental health services or to educational facilities, when that is their right.

I note that the Deputy Minister said that the age of criminal responsibility is a reserved matter, but we have to look at that in Wales, because that age, at 10 years, is very low. Scotland recently raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years, bringing it in line with that in the rest of Europe, but the minimum age at which a child can be charged and brought before a court in the rest of the UK is 10 years.

The committee considered it appropriate that the Government should consider the potential for raising the age of criminal responsibility as part of the review, but we would need systems in place to be able to deal with the fact that there would be much greater pressure on services if we were to raise the age. I know that the Liberal Democrats were not so clear about their stance on the age of criminal responsibility, but they have now made a statement that they support raising the age; it is important for all parties to come together to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

With regards to short sentencing, covered in recommendation 10, the former director of the National Offender Management Service has said that offenders who serve sentences of six months or fewer are not being rehabilitated, and that they usually go on to commit further offences; they are also usually released earlier under the current legislation.

Statistics show that prisoners released after fewer than 12 months go on to commit an average of three crimes each in their first year of freedom, while criminals who are subject to restorative justice penalties, such as community service, have lower re-offending rates than those who are given short-term jail sentences. Witnesses in the inquiry commented that the use of custodial sentences for children and young people in Wales is high.

Wales has one of the highest rates of children and young people in custody in Europe. However, research also shows that only 31% of children in prison are charged with, or convicted of, violent or sexual offences. There was also a broad consensus among witnesses that when children and young people enter the youth justice system, custodial sentences should remain a measure of last resort and reserved for the most serious offences. That view was backed by the children’s commissioner.

I will finish on another comment from the Howard League for Penal Reform. Its spokesman, Andrew Neilson, said that:

“he problem with prisons is that they often make us prisoners in our thinking.”

That, again, clarifies what we found as a committee in that just incarcerating young people—putting them in a box and throwing away the key—is not the way to address our social problems in Wales. Why do people offend? Why do young people go out on to the streets?

I am worried about the changes that the current UK Government is making to benefits and so on. Will more young people offend? Will more people be pushed into poverty thereby increasing the offending rates? If so, we must have policies here in Wales to protect us from those UK Government policies and to ensure that young people do not end up in prison. We need to protect them and show them that they can be useful and respected members of our society. They should be respected, just as we all should.