Putting Young Offenders back on the right track costs money, but it's worth it (Liberal Democrat Education Association)

Liberal Democrat Education Association <info@libdemeducationassociation.org.uk>

Putting Young Offenders back on the right track costs money, but it's worth it

January 12, 2008 7:09 PM
By Baroness Joan Walmsley in JOAN WALSMSLEY is LibDem spokesperson in the House of Lords on

What does every man and woman in the street know about young offenders? I'll bet the answer is that they are very likely to "do it again", especially those who have been sent to prison for their offence. But it doesn't have to be like that. Yes, the re-offending figures are horrendous but the solution to this problem is not rocket science. It's common sense, but it costs money. However, having said that, doing nothing costs even more. We all know that it costs more to keep a child in prison than at Eaton.

So what is the solution? Well, I think the answer lies not just in what we do with the young person while he is IN prison, but, crucially, what happens to him when he gets out. Of course, I would prefer far fewer young people to be given custodial sentences anyway, but we are where we are and we are unlikely to change the Government's mind about that in any hurry.

The fact is that there are many really good professionals working in prisons trying to do their best to rectify the shortcomings in the young offender's education, but there are not enough of them and there are certainly not enough resources to keep these young people on the right track when they get out. Most teachers working in Young Offenders Institutions are really well motivated and try their very best. Sadly, they don't really have the young people long enough to be able to help them achieve something substantial that will help them turn their lives around when they get out. Please don't be alarmed. This is not a plea for longer sentences! The trouble is that many young offenders don't stay inside for very long and, although they start working with the staff on their "Release Plan" the day after they go INTO prison, far too often it all goes pear-shaped when they get OUT.

Recently, a really impressive director of a YOI said to me when I was visiting her prison, "They go out of here with all flags flying, having achieved something in their education, having cracked their drug habit and all the rest. They have their plan, where they are going to live, their education course or apprenticeship or whatever. Then some little thing goes wrong with their course or their accommodation and they have no staying power to get it put right, no stamina. They haven't been used to having the determination to overcome obstacles in their lives so they just give up. It all falls apart for want of someone to come along and say to them, "Now come along with me and we'll sort this out together". So what they need on the outside is someone like they have had on the inside, to encourage and urge them to make an effort and put their life back together again, to keep going until they achieve something. They need someone to lean on for a while to help them get back into work or education. If they had that, many of them would never go back to crime."

That sounds like simple common sense to me. So why don't we do it? Lack of the right people, as usual. I think a simple change would be to give a young ex-offender a statutory right not just to have a release plan in place but a guarantee of the funding and resourcing to make that plan happen, say for two years after release. Of course, this would need more well-trained probation officers, social workers, drug workers and trained mentors, and this costs a lot, but think of the long-term cost-benefit. It would be enormous both for the child and society.