Stop putting young people under 18 through adult courts, urges report

Young people under the age of 18 should no longer be prosecuted in mainstream courts, a leading think-tank has said, calling for youth hearings to be introduced instead for the most serious offences.

The Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice (CYCJ) warned that Scotland is “still failing” teenagers who are being dealt with in the adult criminal justice system.

More than 2,500 under-18s appeared at court in 2013-14, with 333 children under the age of 16 prosecuted through adult courts over the last five years.

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The CYCJ report calls for a presumption that all individuals under the age of 18 are dealt with through the children’s hearing system or diverted from prosecution.

Youth hearings based on a “child-centred ethos” should be created for the most serious offences in which a decision is made to prosecute, according to the study.

The recommendation echoes a call previously made by the Scottish Prisons Commission, led by former First Minister Henry McLeish, for government to re-examine the case for diverting 16 and 17 year olds to specialist youth hearings.

The then Labour-led Scottish Executive introduced youth courts on a pilot basis in Hamilton and Airdrie over a decade ago to deal with persistent young offenders.

However, SNP government ministers confirmed in 2012 their intention to withdraw funds from the initiative, arguing a lack of evidence existed for their continuation.      

“For those young people who commit the most serious offences, there needs to be a system in place that is effective in addressing their behaviour whilst also meeting their needs as children,” said the CYCJ report.

“As we have seen, the youth courts in Scotland did not work as intended or indeed hoped, but there needs to be an alternative in place to ensure no young person under 18 appears in an adult court.”

The number of young people appearing at sheriff courts in Scotland more than halved between 2009-10 and 2013-14 with the population inside Polmont Young Offenders Institution seeing a massive drop too.

Of the 2,101 prosecuted, 93 per cent were on summary proceedings - limiting the sentence a sheriff can hand down to 12 months in prison - with the majority given a non-custodial sentence.

The CYCJ report, by practice development manager Fiona Dyer - who previously worked in the Scottish Government youth justice division - calls for the children’s hearings system to increase its age limit to allow children to remain on a compulsory supervision order (CSO) until they turn 19.  

“As many of these young people received a community based disposal at court, a CSO through the CHS would not only allow for this supervision to take place in the community but would also allow their offending and welfare needs to be addressed in a child-centred way,” added the report.

“Why do we think it is appropriate to prosecute children as adults? And if we do not agree to this, why are we continuing to let it happen?”

Among other recommendations to be made are that all young people under 18 who offend and cannot be diverted to non-formal measures are reported to the children’s reporter, with only the most serious going to the procurator fiscal.

The children’s hearings system should also have “more disposals available to them”, while various pieces of legislation should be amended to legally define all young people under 18 as children.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This is an independent academic paper which we will look at closely. We recognise the need to provide support to young people who come into contact with the justice system, given that appearing in court can be a very traumatic experience for young people, many of whom are ill-prepared for what will confront them. 

“We remain committed to exploring opportunities to further develop the effectiveness of our successful approach to youth justice which has seen substantial reductions in the numbers of young people committing crimes and offences and the number of 16 and 17 year olds in prison.”