---

Youth on Youth Crime

I am not usually accused of mouthing platitudes; I usually try to answer the question. Before I read my speech, which raises some important issues, I shall deal with some of the specific points that the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) has raised. It was remiss of me not to begin by congratulating the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, and I also welcome to these discussions the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire). He and I have had many discussions about such issues. I shall refer to a couple of specific points, so that I do not miss them when I make my general points. We have reviewed crime statistics, and as a consequence, we are reviewing the design of the British crime survey to include people aged under 16. On the hon. Lady’s specific points about the survey, we are considering the way in which we develop it, so that we include the points that she has made. I hope that that provides some reassurance to her. On the issue of reporting crime and the use of e-mail and the internet, the hon. Lady will be interested to know that, in October, I went to Leicester where there is a project called E-Cops. It is not necessarily targeted at young people, but people can e-mail the neighbourhood policing team with their concerns about what is happening in their area. I have spoken to the chief constable of Leicestershire, Matt Baggott, who is also the Association of Chief Police Officers’ leader on neighbourhood policing, and the project will, I hope, spread throughout the country. I agree with the hon. Lady that for young people in particular, e-mail and the internet is a way of reporting crime more safely and securely, and E-Cops, which is used in Leicester, is a very good example of that. The hon. Lady made another point about neighbourhood policing, which is crucial to giving young people confidence on the street. We are always examining the effectiveness of neighbourhood policing, the models that are developed throughout the country and the way in which they provide reassurance to people on the street. We often do not talk about the other important factor: the need to provide a deterrent. There must be a consequence for people on the street who act wrongly and against the law. We must ensure that they are caught and punished, and alongside all our other work, neighbourhood policing helps in that aim. On the issue of police and schools, the hon. Lady will be aware of the safer schools partnership. Throughout the country, there are up to 500 such partnerships. Individual police officers are designated local schools; they work to reassure young people, and they are a good means of reducing and detecting crime. Only recently, my hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety and I met Lord Adonis from the Department for Education and Skills to discuss with the police how we can accelerate the roll-out of safer schools partnerships throughout the country, because it is an exciting and interesting model. Community support is a vital part of the issue, and it is essential that we involve all parts of the community—not only the police, but schools, health bodies, local authorities and all partners in the community. The hon. Lady made that point, and she will be aware that with our review of the framework for police performance indicators, we will introduce an assessment of performance and community safety from April 2008, which may lead us to undertake more of the initiatives that she mentioned. With those opening remarks, I hope that the hon. Lady will realise that I am keen to try to respond to Adjournments debates like this one, in which hon. Members raise significant issues. I shall try to answer some of the points that she raised, in particular her point about the British crime survey and the reporting of crime among the under-16s. I should like to focus attention on what the Government have done to improve the youth justice system over the past 10 years, notwithstanding some of the points that the hon. Lady made. In 1997, the norm was the existence of single agency services, operating with different sets of priorities. The police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts were slow and inconsistent. Standards of regimes in young offender institutes were much lower than they are now. Today things are different. There has been a transformation in how we think about youth justice. Many agencies now have a single vision of preventing offending by children and young people. We have created new structures to plan and deliver youth justice services, through youth offending team partnership. Multi-agency working is a given. Innovative and groundbreaking legislation was at the heart of that change. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created youth offending teams. The multi-agency nature of those teams has served as a blueprint for other public sector reforms. The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 and the respect agenda have pioneered a twin approach: providing young people with support packages to help address behaviour early on, backed up by strong enforcement. The hon. Lady talked about the importance of early intervention and tough enforcement—not either/or, but both operating together. The Children Act 2004 focused effort on ensuring that all children and young people succeed in life, regardless of their backgrounds or individual circumstances. Over the past 10 years a lot has been done. I turn to the situation today with youth on youth crime. Do we live in a lawless society in which our children roam the streets in violent gangs? The answer is no. As I say in many debates about young people, it is imperative to stress that the majority of our young people throughout the country do not offend. They do not harm anyone and they do not bully anyone. They live good and proper lives. It is imperative that we continue to make the point that the vast majority of young people in our society make a huge contribution to it. For example, more young people volunteer than any other age group. They are also more likely to recycle, because they care about the environment in which they live. Although this debate is focused on problems, it is crucial to set them against the fact that only a small minority of young people offend and cause problems in our community. Of course they need to be dealt with, but if we do not get across to our young people the fact that we not only value them and understand their problems but recognise that the vast majority of them are decent, we will face real problems. Why is that important? It is because young people are the victims of the majority of crime, which is another important point that the hon. Lady made. That is why young people want something done about the problem. We are often portrayed or caricatured as a Parliament that is out of touch—a load of older, middle-class men and women who do not understand life on the street. Well, we do understand life on the street. A minority of people cause a problem and the majority of young people, who are decent, want something done about it. They want us to work with them to do that, because they are the victims. I feel strongly about the need to praise the majority of our young people because, as I am sure Opposition Members will confirm, when we talk to young people in schools, in uniformed organisations or in youth clubs, they say, ““Yes, target those who cause problems, but don’t tar all of us with the same brush.”” That is an extremely important message that we need to get across. Youth offending has in fact not risen since 2003. Indeed, the 2005 offending, crime and justice survey showed that only about 1 per cent. of young people aged 10 to 25 had committed burglary or robbery in the past 12 months. However, as the hon. Lady mentioned, there is increased concern among all of us about violent offending by young people. As the tragic events of the previous month and the example that she gave show, the use of guns by young people in particular remains a concern, as does the use of knives. I hope that I do not need to stress how seriously the Government and, to be fair, the whole of Parliament treat the issue. Prevention is a key plank of the Government’s recently announced three-point plan on guns. However, youth on youth crime is a complex issue and generalisations are not easily made. It is true that young people are more likely to be victims than any other age group, and at the hands of other young people. They are also particularly subject to repeat victimisation. There is also an overlap between youth victimisation and offending. Research shows that 15-year-olds who have been victims of certain types of crime are seven times more likely to have offended than those who have not been victims and that 56 per cent. of young people who have committed an offence have also been victims of crime themselves. The designation of victim and offender is therefore not always clear-cut. Despite those complexities, however, we have focused our response on crimes that we know young people commit and on the settings in which they happen. We know that robbery is a particular concern for young people. We have therefore introduced significantly more powerful interventions to tackle mobile phone robbery, through the mobile phone crime reduction charter, which includes challenging targets for the industry on the blocking of stolen phones, which we think will have a significant impact on such crime. We will follow that up with a public information campaign to reinforce the strong message that stolen phones do not work. The charter also supports the safer schools partnership and the ““Out of your hands”” educational programme, which are aimed at providing young people with information and advice to help prevent them from becoming victims of robbery. Of all robberies against young people of school age, 67 per cent. happen during the day. We are working with local partners to improve supervision on school buses, enable third party reporting in schools and youth leisure sites, and promote better use of CCTV for detection. Crucially, we are also supporting local action. For example, in February an innovative pilot project was launched for school pastors to operate at St. Joseph’s academy school in Lewisham. We need to do more of that sort of work. The pastors will provide a visible presence at peak times in and around schools, and on transport links, to deter robbery. They will also counsel potential offenders to attempt to prevent them from getting involved in criminal activity.