Yesterday the Ministry of Justice published its Youth Justice White Paper, setting out a major package of reforms. As an organisation working across the justice system with adults in prison and on probation, victims of crime of all ages, and children criminally exploited through county lines, we welcome the focus on early intervention. We also support the recognition that prevention must sit alongside it: strengthening the foundations of children’s lives long before they come into contact with the justice system. We see every day why intervening early matters: it prevents harm, improves outcomes, and costs the taxpayer far less than the alternative. There is much to welcome in the White Paper, and some points that warrant closer scrutiny.
- Funding must follow ambition. £15.4 million a year to support 12,000 at-risk children is a meaningful start. The downstream costs of not intervening – in harm caused and public spending – are far greater.
- We strongly support the principle of custody as a last resort. Cutting custodial remand by 25%, with £5m for community alternatives, could reduce the youth custodial population by around 20%. We believe community sentences are more effective than custody for all age groups – and especially for children, for whom custody disrupts education, severs family ties, and too often drives further offending.
- Youth Intervention Courts are a promising idea; bringing judges together with health, education and social support reflects what frontline practitioners have long argued: children in contact with the justice system are almost always children with unmet needs first.
- We welcome the commitment to look again at the age of criminal responsibility, which remains low by international standards.
- Delivering on the new child criminal exploitation offence is essential. Our Drawing the Line campaign has been calling for the law to recognise that children groomed into county lines and organised crime are victims of abuse, not criminals. Last year, 89% of those supported by our exploitation services were children, and 59% of those were under 16. Creating a specific CCE offence – and going after the adults who exploit children – is a critical step, and we’ll be watching closely to ensure it is delivered alongside the prevention and specialist support that victims need to recover.
- The framing around parents and carers needs caution. Through our county lines and exploitation services, we know how sophisticated grooming networks are, and how often the parents of vulnerable children themselves may be navigating challenging situations and stretched local services, or even threats of violence. Tougher sanctions risk punishing families already in crisis, and we also need to recognise the wider responsibility of services to wrap around the child and the family.
Above all, lasting change must address the structural drivers of youth offending, including school exclusion, unmet SEND and mental health needs, and inadequate youth provision, rather than focus on children’s behaviour alone.
We look forward to engaging with the detail of the White Paper in the coming months.