New reports on youth justice

The Commons Justice Committee has published a report on youth justice and the youth justice system.

The report highlights the success of restorative justice and the improved work of the Youth Justice Board, youth offending teams and their partners, in responding to youth offending.

The report also recognises that while the number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time has fallen significantly since 2007, vulnerable children have not benefited from this trend and need more support and early intervention to prevent an unnecessary criminalisation of this vulnerable group.

Key recommendations from the committee include:

• Local authorities, children’s homes and prosecutors have appropriate strategies in place to prevent looked after children from being criminalised for trivial incidents which would never come to police attention if they took place in family homes
• More widespread use of restorative justice
• More and better coordinated support for looked after children and care leavers in custody, including extending the commitment to fund social workers in young offenders institutions.

For further information visit www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/justice-committee/news/youth-justice1.