Policy paper

Youth community sentences: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 factsheet

Updated 20 August 2022

What are we going to do?

The principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending and we believe that, wherever possible, children who offend should be managed in the community as it is more beneficial for their rehabilitation. The reforms in this Act will provide courts with the tools they need to deliver stronger community sentences, supporting the welfare of the child while ensuring the public is protected and that sentences reflect the severity of offences.

How are we going to do it?

This Act makes a number of changes to the Youth Rehabilitation Order (YRO). The YRO is a youth community sentence that allows courts to choose from a selection of 18 requirements, including curfews, education, activity, unpaid work, and health.

We will increase the flexibility of the curfew requirement by raising the daily maximum hours from 16 to 20, while retaining the weekly maximum of 112 hours.

We will add a standalone whereabouts monitoring requirement to the list of available requirements to help provide an additional protective factor for the child and improve confidence in tougher community sentences. This measure will be initially introduced for a limited period and we will monitor its effects before rolling it out fully.

We will make Youth Offending Teams the Responsible Officers for YROs with electronic monitoring requirements, rather than the electronic monitoring providers, as they are aware of the child’s individual circumstances and can make informed decisions in the case of a breach.

We will raise the upper age limit of the education requirement so that children who are past compulsory school age, but still in compulsory education or training, will still be eligible for education requirements (compulsory education or training beyond compulsory school age only exists in England).

We will also make changes to the YRO with Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS), a high-intensity alternative to custody, which we believe will give courts the confidence that children can be supervised in the community, and use ISS in place of short custodial sentences. These changes will be piloted to ensure that they are robust and effective before wider use.

We will double the maximum length of the extended activity requirement from 6 to 12 months. We will add a mandatory whereabouts monitoring requirement.

Finally, we will abolish the Reparation Order, a little-used community sentence, to redirect sentencers to other, more effective avenues for reparation, such as Referral Orders or YROs.

Background

These reforms were initially proposed in the Government’s White Paper, A Smarter Approach to Sentencing, published in September 2020, which set out a number of proposals for strengthening the youth justice system.

The approach to youth sentencing is distinct from that for adults. It has a separate sentencing framework, which is focussed on reducing offending but also considers the welfare of the child. We think there are significant changes that could be made to improve the way it works.

We believe that children should be diverted from custody wherever possible: community sentences cause less disruption to children’s family connections and education and can be more effective than custodial sentences at reducing reoffending. The intention behind these measures is to increase courts’ and the public’s confidence in community sentences as a robust alternative to custody.

As we continue to develop these measures we will produce further advice on their implementation.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How will the measures help to rehabilitate young people?

A: Sentencing should allow children the support they need to turn their lives around while ensuring that the public are protected. Rehabilitation is an integral part of the whole youth justice system and courts must always consider the welfare of the child when sentencing.

We recognise that the reoffending rate for children is high and that is why we intend to take forward measures which give the courts powers to give stronger alternatives to custody.

While courts must have all sentencing options open to them to ensure public protection in cases of children who persistently offend or who have committed serious offences, whenever possible children should be managed in the community as this is more beneficial for their rehabilitation.

Q: What benefit will increased curfews have?

A: We know that there will be times when a child is more at risk of committing further offences. For example, at weekends when they may have more free time and may find it more challenging to stay away from undesirable influences. By increasing the daily curfew maximum from 16 to 20 hours while keeping the overall weekly total at 112 hours we are giving courts flexibility to give a more tailored sentence while not allowing greater total restrictions on liberty in any given week.

Q: Why are you piloting the changes to YRO with ISS?

A: Piloting will allow us to ensure that the process is effective before considering a national rollout and allow services to put the right measures in place to ensure such orders are not only effective as an alternative to custody, but also to rehabilitate children who have committed serious offences.

Q: Will there be a need for secondary legislation or further guidance for any of these reforms?

A: As these policies are implemented we will work with operational partners, including the Youth Justice Board, to ensure there is detailed guidance in place for delivery. For the changes to YROs with ISS, further detail will be set out in secondary legislation based on information gathered during the pilots.

Q: Is whereabouts monitoring appropriate for children?

A: Whereabouts monitoring can already be used as part of the supervision period of a youth custodial sentence and we believe that this technology can be a valuable tool in protecting the public and children themselves, where it may provide an additional protective factor. Electronic monitoring can already be used to monitor compliance with other conditions in a Youth Rehabilitation Order (community sentence) and this is about giving the courts another tool to ensure that children are only sent to custody as a last resort.