27/01/2022
Police Oracle
Work with offenders on a new government review
The Ministry of Justice has finally published a Review of Custodial Remand of Children in response to the recommendations on children on remand made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in 2019.
Although the number of children in custody has fallen considerably over the last twelve years, the proportion of children in custody on remand has increased. Remands make up over a third of the children and young people in custody. Almost half of all the children in custody in England and Wales are being held on remand, despite the fact around two-thirds of children remanded to custody will not go on to receive a prison sentence. The number of children remanded to custody increased between 2017 and 2019, even though the number of children sentenced to custody fell during that time period.
IICSA highlighted this issue and recommended that the Government examines the scale and appropriateness of youth custodial remand. The government accepted the recommendation with a commitment to identify options to reduce numbers where appropriate. This report is the result of that review.
The report makes it clear that the MoJ is not over-concerned about the issue of so many children being detained on remand. In its own words, the review “questions the dominant narrative that the number of children on remand has increased significantly or that custodial remand is regularly ‘overused’”. It highlights that remand is a complex decision-making issue and says that courts do not make custodial remand decisions lightly.
The report does however, somewhat grudgingly, acknowledge that there is a problem with the number of short remands (less than seven days) which amount to about a fifth of all custodial remands of children,.
The review presents data and insights gained from stakeholder engagement to better understand issues surrounding youth custodial remand. It highlights areas of best practice and makes proposals to strengthen frontline delivery. It explores issues affecting accommodation and community provision to ensure robust alternatives to custody are available where risk can be managed effectively in the community. The report explores racial disparity in remand outcomes and acknowledges that it exists:
“A degree of disparity remained in outcomes for black children which could not be accounted for by objective factors, remand status or practitioner-assessed factors. Specifically, even after taking into account the influence of offending, demographics, and practitioner assessments, black children remained less likely to receive community remand (8 percentage points).”
However, there is no clear course of action to address this entrenched problem as you can see in the review’s own words again:
“we must not lose sight of the importance of action on broader social inequalities which can be reflected in racial disparities, in addition to exploring any specific steps specific to the remand process”.
Recommendations
The report does identify steps that can be taken across Government and youth services to improve current practice and enhance scrutiny and oversight. These include:
A commitment to enhance accommodation and community provision to ensure robust alternatives to custody are available where risk can be managed effectively. The MoJ says it will “look at” promoting the availability of Bail with Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (Bail ISS) and explore development of local authority accommodation and alternatives to remand in the community.