17th February 2010
By Helen Carter, in today's Guardian.
It is Friday evening at Moreton Family Centre on the Wirral, Merseyside. Jake (not his real name) is finishing tiling a wall in a room that is used by families who have supervised access to their children. He seems genuinely disappointed when it is time to pack up for the evening, at around 6.30pm, and clearly wants to continue. He vows to return to complete the job, even though he has completed his community payback and is under no obligation to do so.
Jake is one of hundreds of young offenders across the north-west who has taken part in a community payback scheme.
What many of the "punishments" share is that they could have been chosen by the local community. Since November, radio adverts across the north-west have invited members of the public to visit the Making Good website and suggest reparation projects that the young offenders can do to make amends. It has received 7,000 visits and 131 suggested projects – which, under the rules, have to be useful and not a substitute for paid work. The suggestions are being considered by reparation workers in individual youth offending teams.
Steve Henry, a sessional worker for the Wirral youth offending team (Yot) that oversees reparation projects in that area, says most of the two-hour sessions take place on Fridays or weekends, as that would usually be the young person's free time. "It is a punishment that seems to work," he says. "We have had only one session that was disruptive. Generally, they are fine."
The Wirral scheme has worked with eight young people, aged between 15 and 17, who have committed crimes such as burglaries and antisocial behaviour.
One of the boys says: "It makes me think about what I had done wrong. It is not prison. I feel it is like a final warning and helps me move my life on. I am nearly 18 and I want to start driving lessons soon."
Reparation work includes producing bird boxes, tables and bug boxes, as well as laboriously sanding down and repainting metal railings at a church, and clearing a pathway through overgrown wasteland near a municipal tip.
Critics argue that the Making Good scheme is a populist step too far to solve a serious problem. The charge is denied by Frances Done, chair of the Youth Justice Board.
She says the majority of suggestions from the public in the north-west scheme have been eminently sensible, and insists that it is not populism. "We don't see it like that," she says. "It is not propaganda – it means the public knows what is going on. It is giving the public confidence in the justice system and an understanding [of] where it is coming from. Youth offending teams have given out posters that have been put around community centres, and that has generated a lot of interest, response and discussion."
Previously, elements of the criminal justice system had been hidden from the community, Done says. "Reparation works with local people; it involves them in the youth justice system, and they will start to understand more what it is about."
Making Good is one element of a new youth sentencing system – the Youth Rehab ilitation Order, introduced in November – that allows judges and magistrates to combine different forms of community punishment, alongside re-habilitation.
Tomorrow, it will start a nationwide rollout, with Yots in the north-east.
Despite the controversy, for Jake community reparation has proved a great success. He says: "I want to do bricklaying and joinery. I am a lot happier and I just need to keep my head down. I have got a baby on the way."
Read the article in today's Guardian
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.