What happens on release matters

The two boys about to be sentenced to long terms of custody by an adult criminal court will be detained in local authority secure children’s homes. There has been a lot of media coverage about their backgrounds and the horrible crime itself, but my concern is what is going to happen to them next.

The case of Dano Sonnex illustrates how terrible can be the consequences if young people who have already committed crimes of violence are held in custody and treated really badly. Sonnex was locked up in a prison aged 17, was kept in solitary for long periods, never given any work or proper psychiatric care. After five years being caged like this he was released back into the community with little support and a probation officer who was trying to deal with 100 other people at the same time. He killed two students in the most terrible way.

The contrast to this is of course the experience of the boys who killed James Bulger, who were detained in local authority secure children’s homes until they were 18 and have been resettled into the community now for several years, apparently law abiding. Similarly Mary Bell, who has settled safely after her period in a local authority unit.

The lawyers of these the two boys have struck a deal, that benefits the victims who will now not have to go through the trauma of giving evidence in court. They are going to be sentenced for GBH. This can attract a life sentence with the judge giving a recommended minimum time to be spent in custody, or a sentence for detention for public protection again that requires a minimum tariff, or, but less likely, an extended sentence that is a fixed term. Once the minimum time has been spent in custody they will be subject to a review by the Parole Board to see if they can be considered safe for release.

There are two issues here, where will they be held for the custody term and what will happen on release.

If they go into a local authority secure children’s home they will be one of very few children who are now able to benefit from this regime. The Youth Justice Board is the government agency that decides in which institution children are held. The number of beds in these homes has been cut by more than 100 and another four homes are facing closure. The Howard League for Penal Reform acted on behalf of a young and very vulnerable boy recently who was held in a local secure home about to be closed in an attempt to force the YJB to continue funding places there, for exactly these sort of difficult children.

What will happen to the boys on release matters. If they have a decent experience for the many years they are going to spend in custody, we hope that their lives can be transformed and they could be safely returned to the community and live law-abiding lives. But if that release is sudden, unsupported and they are abandoned to a bed and breakfast existence, their chances are not great. If they are released aged under 18 the local authority will have a duty to house and support them. If they are older than 18 the support available is more tenuous. The Howard League legal team spends much of its time representing young people about to be released from custody who face precarious housing, emotional and social abandonment. We are forced to take judicial review action against local authorities to force them to recognise either leaving care rights or that our client is a vulnerable adult. We believe that if a young person has spent most of their teenage years in penal custody they should automatically be considered to have acquired leaving care rights and therefore the local authority should look after them. Very few have parents who can do this.

The point is that after years and years in custody, people need help to settle back into the outside world. They need help to form new relationships, as they will leave behind everyone who has meant anything to them. They need help to find something useful to do all day – we don’t want to keep them on the dole.

There is redemption and change, but it is not easy and it is not cheap. But the effort and cost prevents another tragedy, so it is worth it.

Support on release Our solici
Ofsted report on child jails and secure units Ofsted has
Deaths following release from prison As directo
Non porous prisons Over the l
Children’s prison to close Castington

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September 4, 2009 Tags: youth justice, Youth Justsice Board Posted in: Children and young people, Rehabilitation

8 Responses

Old Holborn - September 4, 2009

Crime is a choice. The penalty you pay for commiting a crime is not just a prison sentence. Instead of seeking to support those who have commited crimes, your efforts would be better spent explaining the very unpleasant consequences of commiting a crime
Matthew Cain - September 4, 2009

@oldholborn I don’t believe life is as simple as you suggest. A person’s ability to make a rational, informed choice is diminished by their upbringing. The impact of a tough start in life can even be seen in the size and chemical composition of their brains.

Trying to teach people like the mother of these young boys about the need to make wise choices is a tough task.
elizabeth - September 4, 2009

What do you mean ’support those who have commited crimes’? Accept they are there? Try to rehabilitate them so they don’t commit anymore crimes? What is the problem with putting these children where they have a chance to rehabilitate?
Lucy H - September 4, 2009

Interestingly, the young people who commit offences and are given a Referral Order are presented with exactly the sort of diversionary tactics to which Old Holborn alludes – they are sent to visit prisons, told time and time again about the consequences of further offending. Referral Orders have a relatively low recidivism rate.

However, some young people do go on to further offending, and some commit such serious offences the first time that they go straight to jail, do not pass go and do not collect £200. Those young people need to be treated in a way that is humane and reduces the likelihood that they will reoffend on release. As Frances Cook’s blog points out, they do not necessarily have families who are capable of adequately supporting them on the outside, so it’s in all of our interest that they are supported and equipped for life after custody.
Old Holborn - September 4, 2009

The problem is that Prison is the very, very, very last resort. By the time an offender is commited to custody, all other attempts at rehabilitation have failed by definition.

Rehabilitation starts with the first offence, not the last.
andrew.neilson@howardleague.org - September 4, 2009

Melanie Reid has an excellent piece in The Times on this tragic case (for all the children concerned)

You can read it here http://bit.ly/qfMyr
Matthew Kimber - September 6, 2009

An equally good article on young offenders and how they too deserve care and help, as opposed to the counter-productive and blunt method of a harsh prison sentence, followed by an almost unconditional release can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/jenni-murray-childrens-rights-protection?commentpage=2&commentposted=1.
Of particular interest are the numerous varied and insightful comments left by other readers.
Paul Smith - September 8, 2009

‘Trying to teach people like the mother of these young boys about the need to make wise choices is a tough task.’

So rather than getting to the cause of the problem because it’s ‘a tough task’, you decide to give up and then put a ’sticking plaster on the gaping wound of the consequences.’

We are talking about two monsters who have terrorised a community for years, causing not just these two, but MANY victims. You don’t seem to care about the victims anymore !!!

Just because you have no stomach to deal with the root cause and have to make yourself feel better by not properly punishing the GUILTY !