Teenage offenders should be kept out of prison
Courts should avoid sending teenagers who have breached anti-social behaviour orders to prison, the sentencing advisory panel has said.
Courts should avoid sending teenagers who have breached anti-social behaviour orders to prison, the sentencing advisory panel has said.
In the week that debate has raged over the effect alcohol is having on violence and anti-social behaviour among the young, the panel issued guidance that advised against using the same custody threshold that would apply to adults who have breached the orders.
It called for greater use of restorative justice as an underlying principle in youth justice disposals, from referral and reparation orders to action plan and supervision orders.
The panel proposes that in most cases of breach by a young offender, the appropriate sentence will be a community order, said the panel.
The custody threshold should be set at a higher level than the threshold applicable to adult offenders; the custody threshold usually will be crossed where the breach involved serious harassment, alarm or distress.
The custody threshold may also be crossed where there has been a series of breaches involving a lesser degree of harassment, alarm or distress.
The guidelines said that where the court considers a custodial sentence to be unavoidable, the starting point for sentencing should be four months detention, with a range of up to 12 months. Where a series of breaches has involved serious harassment, alarm or distress, sentence may go beyond that range.
The panel does however, recommend taking a tougher line with adult offenders but believes that nobody should be jailed for breaching an ASBO unless it causes harassment, alarm or distress.
It says that the Code for Crown Prosecutors states that a youth should be prosecuted only where there are clear public interest factors in favour of doing so and that in making this decision the interests of the youth must be considered.
Specific guidance on anti-social behaviour states that the police, in consultation with the youth offending team (YOT), should make an assessment of both the seriousness of the breach and the young persons offending history.
A final warning may be appropriate where the breach of an ASBO is a first criminal offence, provided the breach was not a flagrant one. Where the breach was flagrant, then the expectation would be to charge, unless there was some very unusual circumstances.
The panel said that a sentence designed to prevent re-offending also helps to promote the welfare of the young offender.