Action on youth crime

Carol Jenkins reports on the new Police Electronic Notifications to YOT project, a national process to make it quicker for officers to notify youth offending teams that a youth has committed crime and is an appropriate candidate for intervention activity – it also cuts unnecessary paperwork

The murder of young woman Sophie Lancaster by drunken teenagers was a stark reminder of the devastating impact youth crime can have on families.

Sophie, 20, was attacked and kicked to death by youths while walking with her boyfriend in a local park last summer. Police believe they were targeted
because they were members of the Gothic sub-culture. The attackers were convicted of her murder in March.

Growing public concern over youth crime has prompted the Home Office to publish its Youth Crime Action Plan, which sets out proposals to reduce crime and make communities safer.

Although overall rates of crimes committed by juvenile
offenders have held steady, each year around 100,000 people between the ages of 10 and 17 enter the criminal justice system for the first time.

The new action plan aims to reduce this rate by one-fifth by 2020. It plans to achieve this through a package of tough enforcement and intensive prevention measures.

Evidence shows that young people have more chance of avoiding entering into a life of crime if they take part in some form of intervention.

Figures from the Youth Justice Board (YJB) show that over 75% of young people receiving reprimands and final warnings do not reoffend in the following twelve
months. It is also important that any intervention activity is delivered as swiftly as possible if it is to have a long-term effect.

Police role
Front-line police officers have an important role to play in ensuring that young people who commit minor crimes are given early access to prevention measures in order to stop them descending into a life of serious crime.

A project being led by the YJB and the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) aims to make it quicker for officers to notify youth offending teams
(YOTs) that a young person has committed crime and is an appropriate candidate for intervention activity.

The Police Electronic Notifications to YOTs (PENY) project will encourage police officers to inform their local YOTs when they reprimand a young person, give them a final warning, charge them with an offence, or issue a penalty notice for disorder.

This must be done within 24 hours of a disposal decision being made and police must also provide details about victims of youth crime to YOTs, where
victim consent has been given.

PENY is a national process to ensure that police communicate with YOTs in a way that conforms to a national standard by sending agreed information via the Criminal Justice Secure eMail (SeM) system or other agreed secure method.

The SeM system was established four years ago by the Office of Criminal Justice Reform to allow organisations like the police and Youth Offending
Service to communicate in a secure way.

This not only protects the information that is exchanged by the agencies but also speeds up
the communication process and ensures a more joined-up approach to criminal justice.

Police benefits
In the past, some information flows were sent over by police officers to YOTs via fax, which resulted in excessive paperwork and the method of delivery wasn’t secure.

Acting Supt Peter Hogget from the NPIA explained that, in the past, forces had been encouraged to inform YOTs of a young person’s arrest but that this
wasn’t happening in every force all of the time.

“We were finding that the picture was inconsistent around the country,” he said. “This meant that we weren’t identifying these children early enough; more
young people were getting into crime early and, as a result, youth crime levels go up.”

It is hoped that once frontline officers see the benefits of early notification that it will soon become a routine part of their jobs.

Not only will the project provide young people with a better chance of addressing their behaviour, it will also provide a better service for victims.

It will free up more time for front-line policing by reducing unnecessary paperwork. The Independent
Review of Policing by Sir Ronnie Flanagan highlighted the need to free up police time by reducing bureaucracy and by “improving and strengthening the structures and systems that support policing.”

It is hoped that PENY will help make best use of resources as well as safeguard young people in the youth justice system.

Other benefits include improving partnership working across government departments and improving public reassurance.

PENY in action
Under the new system, an officer will inform the local YOT of a young person’s arrest within 24 hours by filling in a simple Word template and sending it via the
Secure eMail system.

In some cases, forces will attach the agreed information directly from NSPIS Custody and Case management system, Niche or Consortium systems to a secure email message.

A/Supt Hoggett explained that in some areas the job will be done by an officer who is based within a youth offending team but can have access to the police
computer. He said the project was designed to make it as straightforward as possible for officers to provide the correct information to YOTs in a timely manner.

The project has been successfully trialled in Essex Police, while British Transport Police based in the North-East of England started piloting the PENY
process in May.

The project is due to be rolled-out to all forces and YOTs in England and Wales by December this year.

The PENY project team has been visiting forces to provide them with the necessary information to enable the project to be implemented.

Essex Chief Constable Roger Baker, chairman of ACPO’s Youth Issues Group, and Charles Clarke, a member of the Youth Justice Board, have sent a joint letter to all chief constables and YOTs thanking them for their compliance with this national initiative.

Better decision making
The project is also important because it will provide police with extra support to enable them to make the right decisions about the best course of action for a young offender.

“We recognise that the police aren’t necessarily always the right people to make decisions about possible outcomes for the young person,” said A/Supt
Hoggett.

“If we can bring young people to the attention of the Youth Offending Service as early as possible then they will be given the benefit of expert advice about what is the best way to help them stop reoffending.

“By telling the YOTs in time, there is a good chance that young people can be diverted away from further criminality.”

A/Supt Hoggett is clear about how the success of the project will be measured. “In two years’ time we hope that youth crime statistics will be reduced and that it will be recognised that much of this is down to the work of the PENY project.”

Youth crime action
The Home Office Youth Crime Action Plan offers support for the most troubled families, as well as an intensive programme for areas with the worst records for youth crime.

Included in the action plan are: better prevention and support for victims; expansion of family intervention projects; increasing the number of ASBOs accompanied by parenting orders and expanding the number of Safer Schools partnerships.

The plan aims to increase the number of youth centres and other activities at times when young people are likely to offend, including Friday and Saturday nights.

It calls for making permanent exclusion from school an automatic trigger to a comprehensive assessment of a youth’s situation.

The plan focuses on the importance of tougher enforcement of legislation to remove at-risk children from the streets late at night and more work to tackle antisocial behaviour and underage drinking.

It will also give communities the chance to decide what type of reparation work they want young people serving community sentences to do and will require
young offenders to work out their community sentences on Friday and Saturday nights.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: “Increasingly, we are able to identify these young people early and intervene to address the root causes of their behaviour, including supporting and challenging their parents in meeting their responsibilities.”

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