Agenda item

The Panel received a report and presentation on the Youth Justice Service (for copy of report and presentation see file of minutes). 

The Youth Justice Service Manager, Dave Summers, informed the Panel that the service supervises all young people sentenced by the courts, those receiving a police caution and all those remanded in secure accommodation awaiting trial or sentencing.  In addition the service delivers targeted work to prevent young people from entering the youth justice system and the Service Manager outlined the pre-caution disposal (PCD) process which provides police officers with an alternative to ‘formal’ police action.  The Panel heard that there had been a 65% reduction in the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system and currently approximately 75% of the young people receiving a PCD do not go on to reoffend.  In addition, the Ministry of Justice had recently awarded funding to further develop the early help and pre-caution disposal functions. 

The Youth Justice Service Manager outlined that approximately 13% of the cohort supervised by the service are children and young people looked after and a small number of those had become looked after due to being remanded in youth detention. Work is undertaken with the Children Looked After service to ensure that the young person’s care needs are taken into account alongside the factors for their offending. 

The Service Manager also referred to the service’s engagement in research by Cardiff University to investigate criminalisation and children looked after.  Further information on the research will be fed-back to the Panel in due course.

The Service Manager informed the Panel that close work is undertaken with the police, with police officers seconded to the Youth Justice service. 

Of the 58 young people entering the youth justice system in 2021/22, approximately 83% of those were male and the age group most likely to offend had reduced from 16-17 years, to 15-16 years, and the service was seeing increasing number of 14 year olds.

The Service Manager explained that in recognition that not being in education, employment or training is a risk factor in offending behaviour, the service works with each young person in their education setting and the service is part of the Strategic Management Board which also includes representation from education establishments.

The Service Manager informed the Panel that the number of cases progressing to court had reduced over the past 10 years with the help of early intervention schemes and increasing opportunities for issues to be dealt with outside of court, however a slight increase had been observed during the past twelve months.

Resolved:

That the report and presentation be noted.