Young offenders face sentencing lottery, say critics

Prison Reform Trust says some courts are up to 10 times more likely to issue custodial sentences than others
An inmate in a young offenders' institution
An inmate in a young offenders institution. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty images Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Young offenders face a postcode ­lottery over sentencing, according to penal reformers, with youth courts in some parts of the country up to 10 times more likely to impose custodial sentences for certain crimes than their counterparts elsewhere.

The overall proportion of young people locked up also varies enormously across England and Wales, according to figures compiled by the Prison Reform Trust (PRT).

The organisation compared the total number of youth custody sentences in each region during 2008-09 against the equivalent local population of 10- to 17-year-olds. The resulting league table was topped by Lambeth in south London, where almost one in 200 young people were given custodial sentences over the year, 25 times more than the equivalent figure for Dorset.

While many of the differences can be explained by social and demographic factors, the PRT points to a series of apparent anomalies.

Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales puts one in 276 of all local young people into custody, the seventh-highest overall, even though its average crime rates are far lower than other areas near the top of the table, mainly inner London boroughs, along with Manchester and Nottingham.

Youth courts in Merthyr Tydfil also issued custodial terms for just over 20% of all sentences over the period, the highest in England and Wales, and 10 times the equivalent rate in Newcastle.

Peterborough in Cambridgeshire is another relatively low crime area where a high proportion of young people – one in 328 – were locked up. Here, more than 12% of all youth sentences involved custody.

The figures are subject to some fluctuation given the relatively low overall numbers involved. But Penelope Gibbs, in charge of reducing child and youth imprisonment at the PRT, said the organisation had identified more than a dozen places where youth custody rates seemed consistently too high, also including Bridgend, Rotherham, Derby and Wolverhampton.

"I would call it a postcode lottery," she said. "Some areas will, of course, always have more of an issue with youth crime. But it's completely wrong if there is a lot more chance of you being sent to prison for committing a crime in one place rather than another. It goes against natural justice."

Some of the differences were likely to be "court cultural issues", she said, with custodial sentences becoming a "habit" for some judges and magistrates.

The government is officially committed to replacing youth custodial terms with community sentences where possible, not least as more than three-quarters of those sent to young offenders institutions commit another crime within a year of release.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB), which oversees the system in England and Wales, wrote to every local authority and youth court last year to inform them how many young people they had in custody, in part to try to address regional differences.

Frances Done, who chairs the YJB, concedes that there are inconsistencies but rejects the idea that this is due to some youth courts taking a deliberately tough approach.

"We're very much looking at the relationships and trust between courts and young offender teams. If a magistrate is to impose a community sentence rather than custody then it's absolutely critical that they have confidence it can be implemented properly," she said.

Some areas, such as the north-east of England, have "a really very good record over this", Done said, with custody rates reflecting this.

She added: "But this has been consistent work over 10 years. It doesn't happen overnight."