Welcome

Thank you to everyone who attended our National Youth Justice Conference. I hope you’ll agree it was another inspiring and informative event, generating lots of discussion and debate, and useful practice and learning points. Whether you were a delegate or not, you can catch up with everything that happened – from the talks to the ‘elphies’ – on our website. Check it out for presentations, the social media Storify and images, with more to come including speaker podcasts.
 
The big news this month is that we’ve updated our much loved guide to youth justice in Scotland for 2016. The team have worked hard to update each of the 10 sections, incorporating changes to legislation,  policy and research. Please share this with anyone you think might be interested. You can access the full guide, individual sections and an overview here.

This month we have two Information Sheets for you by Stewart Simpson on the theme of disclosure. The first one, on disclosure of offences, gives a broad overview of the current situation for young people who have been charged with offences, yet have not been convicted in court or who have had offence “grounds” accepted or established in the children’s hearings system. The second looks at disclosure of previous convictions, which can be complex and confusing for young people, families and professionals. Access Info Sheet 50 and Info Sheet 51.

Are you a criminal justice manager who’s interested in receiving training that’s tailored to your role? CYCJ is introducing criminal justice managers training as part of its summer school series. This will take place on August 24 and 25 at the University of Strathclyde, and cost £150 per person. Read more. You can apply by emailing cycj@strath.ac.uk.

Following our Practice Development Manager Fiona Dyer’s visit to New York, she has written an interesting case study on how we can work better with young people, using the example of the Red Hook Community Court in Brooklyn. Read it here.

We recently hosted a visit from the Centre for Justice Innovation, who were particularly impressed by the Scottish Children’s Hearing System. This inspired them to write a guest blog for us, considering what youth proceedings in England and Wales can learn from Scotland. Read it here. On the subject of our Raising Youth Justice blog, we’re excited about a number of guest bloggers coming up in the next few months, so watch this space!

Finally, this month we bid farewell to Linda Robb as she retires. Linda has been a valued member of the CYCJ team since the ‘early days’ and she will be missed.

Enjoy reading, and make sure to let us know about your news, views and stories.

Claire Lightowler
CYCJ Director

Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015

The  Prisoners (Control of Release) (Scotland) Act 2015 introduced changes to the operation of automatic early release, although made no changes for any category of prisoner as to when consideration for parole takes place.

For young people aged under 18, the 2015 Act generally does not apply.  However, there is one category of sentence where it does apply and that is where the individual has been sentenced to detention of more than four years.  The effect of the 2015 Act is that such persons are only entitled to automatic early release with six months left on sentence and only if the person has not previously been released from detention. There is an exception to this rule, if the young person, in addition to being detained for a period of four years or more, has received an extended sentence – in these circumstances, the young person is not eligible for automatic early release at any point in their detention. 

The following young people are not subject to the terms of the 2015 Act:

• Children under the age of 16
• Children aged 16 or 17 sentenced to secure accommodation for any length of sentence
• Children aged 16 or 17 sentenced to detention of less than four years

These young people will continue to be subject to existing rules in relation to automatic early release contained within the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993.

Keeping you informed of the figures

We have been publishing monthly averages of the number of young people in secure care and custody since December 2015. The average number of young people in custody in May 2016 was:
 

Date	Under 16	Untried under 16	Convicted Male U18	Convicted Female U18	Untried Male U18	Untried Female U18	Convicted Awaiting Sentence U18	Total average
May 2016	0	0	41	2	29	0	11	83
April 2016	0	0	34	2	32	0	6	74

 
During April there were on average 81 young people in secure care, an average of nine of whom were sentenced. This compares with 82 and nine respectively during May 2016. A graph comparing all of these average figures over the previous six months can be viewed here.

For more details, please contact deborah.nolan@strath.ac.uk.

Implementation Groups - update

The Developing Capacity and Implementation Group held its third meeting on June 1. The Group is continuing to undertake the workforce needs analysis which will be used to inform the development of a collaborative approach to training and workforce development opportunities across the variety of disciplines involved in youth justice. A subgroup looking at the creation of a shared data set and performance framework is also due to meet imminently. Following the next meeting in August a further update on progress will be provided. 

The fourth meeting of the Improving Life Chances Implementation Group took place on June 6. This discussed the development of CYCJ’s workplan and explored how the wide ranging knowledge and expertise of group members could be best utilised to inform policy and practice. The group is continuing to collate case study information on school exclusion and the health profiles of the young people that the group is working with, as well as any barriers experienced in accessing services and examples of good practice. A further update will be provided following the next meeting of the group in August.

The first meeting of the Opportunities for All subgroup also took place on June 13. This provided an extremely useful opportunity to explore the context of the subgroup, agree the role and remit of this group and share some initial experiences and views on current good practice examples and work in this area, the barriers to achieving Opportunities for All and tasks that can be taken forward by this subgroup. Progress updates will be available in the CYCJ e-bulletin.

The advancing Whole Systems Approach Implementation Group met on June 9. The group has continued to explore key membership and representatives from education and health have been welcomed.

The group has clarified some early learning from the East Ayrshire Named Person pilot (e.g. school was not a mandatory field on IVPD forms). SCRA reported to the group that in relation to jointly reported cases, progress has been maintained with increasing numbers of jointly reported cases being dealt with by the Reporter.

The group are continuing to explore effective interventions in Scotland across EEI, Diversion and Community Alternatives and will consider the findings of CYCJ’s scoping of services delivered in Scotland at the next meeting in September.
 

Have you given us your feedback on the young person’s journey?

We are still keen to receive any feedback you might have on the Youth and Criminal Justice: the young person’s journey resource to help us inform our annual update. If you have used the resource, we are particularly interested to find out:

• How have you used the resource?
• Does the resource cover the key areas of practice and stages in a young person’s journey through the youth and criminal justice system?
• Is the information contained within the resource useful?
• Have you had any issues using the resource?

Please send any feedback to deborah.nolan@strath.ac.uk by Friday, July 22.  

Research review

Crime figures released from Police Scotland reveal a 3.2% fall in recorded crime, although there’s been a 5% rise in violent crime. Read more.

Events and training

In addition to the National Youth Justice Conference, this month we have presented the initial findings of our research into ‘Responses to offending: factors that influence decision making within residential child care’ at the SIRCC Conference 2016. There was a lot of interest in this research, with the full research report due to be published in July - if you can’t wait our Information Sheet on Looked after children and crime is available now. We have also provided multi-agency colleagues in Falkirk Council with a roadshow on the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014  and Preventing Offending Getting it right for children and young people. If you are interested in us coming to provide a roadshow in your organisation, please get in touch!

Got events you’d like to promote?
Get in touch with us at cycj@strath.ac.uk, together with a description of the event, links to further information and any other relevant details

News and views

The latest issue of Scottish Justice Matters features an article written by CYCJ’s Claire Lightowler, Fiona Dyer and Debbie Nolan on the lessons to be learned from the Whole System Approach. Read it here.

Following Frances Crook’s call for radical change in children’s prisons at the National Youth Justice Conference, the Howard League have published a report revealing that restraint use on child prisoners has doubled in England and Wales. Read more about these disturbing findings.

‘Compassion doesn’t mean excusing actions.  It means not condemning the humanity of the person who committed them.’ We felt fear, anger and sadness following the death of MP Jo Cox. But is it possible to go a step further and feel compassion towards her murderer? Dr Suzanne Zeedyk considers Thomas Mair’s actions against the context of mental illness and social isolation in her blog. Read it here.

For a one-stop shop on all things youth justice, check out the Youth Justice Resource Hub site or ‘Hub’. The YJB’s aim in establishing the Hub is that it will provide an easy-to-navigate, one-stop shop, to assist in improving the delivery of its ‘identifying and disseminating good practice’ function. Check it out here.

The CELCIS Reach magazine is now out, focusing on children and young people looked after at home by their parents or in kinship care. Read it here. 

You said...we did

At the recent Skills Development Scotland inputs on Youth and Criminal Justice in Scotland: the young person’s journey the issue of disclosure (or most specifically the uncertainties surrounding disclosure of criminal records) were again highlighted. As a result we have chosen this as our topic for this month’s two Information Sheets.

Stakeholder spotlight

YCSA (Youth Community Support Agency)

Youth Community Support Agency (YCSA) is a leading Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) charity and a value based organisation, which is based around the word RESPECT- Responsibility, Empower, Support, Potential, Equality, Challenge and Trust.  

The organisation supports and empowers young people in social, educational and developmental processes, enabling them to reach their potential and become active valued members of a diverse community. Holistic support is offered through a variety of in-house services to ensure young people have maximum and effective support. The main focus of this work is to engage those young people deemed ‘hard to reach’, at risk of social exclusion and on the fringes of society.

Intensive individual support forms the basis of much of the work at YCSA. Interventions are tailored to individual needs and are sensitive to young people’s culture, religion, faith and family structures. Through years of provision, a sound understanding of the issues and challenges that ethnic minority families face in Scotland today has been built up.

YCSA support young people from 10 to 25 years old, which is offered through three core programmes- Ctrl Alt Delete, Connect Protect Respect (CPR) and Ebara. An important asset to the work the organisation offers is through volunteering opportunities, to support the needs of young people. Staff are expertly skilled in identifying the specific and individual needs of the young person and developing a specialised and targeted support provision, so that the young people value themselves and develop their potential.

Find out more.