Policies pursued by governments in the last 14 years
There were proposals that were presented by Michael Howard on how to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour among the young people. Among the 27 measures proposed by Michael Howard, eighteen were incorporated into the Criminal Justice Bill for passing by the parliament. One of the proposals was the reinstatement of the approved schools, the elimination of the right to silence, electronic tagging, restrictions of the right to bail and that of the right to trial by jury (Utting, Vennard & Scott, 2002). This policy is in line with Margaret Thatcher’s statement that prisons were only “an expensive way of making bad people worse.” This policy to deal with youth offenders has been necessitated by the fact that every aspect of the criminal justice system is basically in a state of confusion. Crime figures especially among the young offenders were higher than ever before and the court cases that were published revealed law enforcement officers as involved in brutal and corrupt deals (McConville & Wilson, 2002).
In 1998, the Crime and Disorder Act was passed, being the initial criminal justice law passed by the New Labour government after it was elected in 1997 (Wilcox & Hoyle, 2004). This policy in many aspects marked the history of the nation’s reaction to concerns of children and crime. This legislation can be illustrated as landmark for two major reasons. The first one is due to the fact that it offers an overarching mission for the justice system as far as youth and crime is concerned: Section 37 of the Act states that the main aim of the justice system must be ‘to prevent offending by children and young persons’ (Newburn, 2002: 560). Therefore, the Crime and Disorder Act changed the arrangement of service provision concerning children and crime. There were other legislations that were passed after this act, such as the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (Newburn, 2002).
The second reason is in the fact that it is through this act that the justice system is given the power to engage with the matter of anti-social acts and thus to intervene with young offenders, and their families. A number of sanctions are put in place to ensure that these interventions are enacted, and after they have been processed and incorporated in the appropriate legislation, it is in this legislation that they emanate. Furthermore, the two acts mark a definite move from the essentials expressed in previous policies to keep away young offenders (especially the ones without a previous criminal record) away from criminal acts. This is in the sense that the behaviour is changed before it becomes established in the young people (Newburn, 2002).
One of the impacts of the interventions that were introduced by the act of 1998 (and pursued through in a series of policy edicts, regulation and further law) is that most of the present service reaction in England and Wales to the issue of crime and anti-social behaviour prevention among the young people has developed only in the last decade, especially the past four to five years. This has both pro and con. The pro is that most of the period following the year of the enactment, innovations are subject to formal assessment. This is in line with the commitment by the government to proof-based policy and practice. This has provided ready bases for the review of the legislation. The con on the other hand is that, due to the fact that all the development has been experienced in the recent past, the amount of useful research literature on the present policy is not much (Newburn, 2002).
Nevertheless, one thing is clear and this is the character of the knowledge base on which the interventions of the act as well as the new provisions to which it produced are founded. One of the structures that were established for the implementation of the act was the Youth Justice Board (Tilley, 2001). One of the initial actions of this board was commissioning of a number of studies on the issues that are related to its agenda of ‘preventing youth offender’ so as to inform the establishment of effective practice (Tarling, Davison & Clarke, 2004). The researches were carried out by independent people and are systematic as well as wide-ranging in their approach. This means that they offer an important basis on which to base the review of the effectiveness of the policy (McConville & Wilson, 2002).
Through identification of the risk-factors, the board developed the directly protective function. This is where they analyse circumstances or environments that pose a risk to the youths in developing criminal and anti-social behaviours. They serve in protecting the youth against the early development of involvement in criminal acts (Smith, 2003). The protective factors have been identified to impact in three main ways. The first one is by preventing the occurrence of the factors that are considered risky. The second one is through interaction with the risk factors in reducing their serious effects. The last one is by disrupting the developmental and mediational sequence by which the risk factors are likely to influence or underpin developing behaviour (Wilcox & Hoyle, 2004).
Besides the policies that were passed in 1998 and 1999, there have been recent policy efforts to further transform the criminal justice system. There was a White Paper, Justice for All in 2003 that proposed different measures in reforming the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom and Wales (Tarling, Davison & Clarke, 2004). This policy generated a lot of controversy within the United Kingdom, and considerable opposition from human rights activists and lawyers who opposed many of the proposals within the policy. It also generated interest in other countries around the world who have also been involved in changing their justice systems. These proposals were incorporated in a bill that would await passage by the parliament. The year 2003 can be marked as the year of almost complete overhaul to long-standing principles and procedures that have underpinned the criminal justice system. Many other nations around the world have used the United Kingdom as a model for their criminal justice systems. They have therefore built their own precedents and procedures on the United Kingdom, acclimatising them for their own different societies (Newburn, 2002).
Sir Robin Auld, a senior and respected Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal in 2000 was requested to take a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system and come up with suggestions on how it should be improved. He carried out serious consultations, getting opinions from all stakeholders in the society, and drawing on effective global experiences. His work resulted in (Review of the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales (October 2001) (Wilcox & Hoyle, 2004). This however did not please all the players in the criminal justice system, even some of the people who would have been expected to share his opinion. Nevertheless, his review was welcomed by the government, which the following year and following further consultations came up with the White Paper (“Justice for All”, Cmnd 5563) providing its proposal for reform (Wilcox & Hoyle, 2004).
Further consultations in sentencing reform produced (“Making Punishments Work: report of a review of the sentencing framework in England and Wales” (2001) by John Holladay) were included in the proposals and afterwards in the Criminal Justice Bill. After consulting even further and adding into the recommendations that were made by Auld, there were comprehensive recommendations for changes to the criminal justice system as well as the courts in dealing with both adult and juvenile offenders. Following the announcement of the proposals by the government, it was announced that the required funds to bring some of the more reasonable were not simply going to be availed. This meant that some of the proposals besides those that were going to save money would not see the light of the day (Wandersman & Florin, 2003).
Every passing year, the justice system has been anticipated to accommodate new policies to meet the undisputed challenges that the society brings (Smith, 2003). One of the policy that the government has incorporated into the criminal justice system has proposed the erosion of the right of the accused to remain silent under questioning by the police by letting a judge or jury to come up with adverse inferences from an accused person’s silence in interview, and by letting the prosecution to comment on the same, as well as any failure by the accused to produce evidence (Morris & Maxwell, 2003). A person who has already been put in custody can currently be needed to give samples for scientific assessment, and in other cases they can be taken by force. The right of the accused person to view evidence in possession of the prosecution that may assist him in the case may be dependant on his willingness to give to the prosecution, in sufficient time prior to his court appearance, what is referred to as a “defence case statement” detailing the nature of defence during the trial. It also sets out any matter on which the defendant makes issue with the prosecution. In many areas of investigation, there has not always been impartiality. The defendant’s right to get scientific evidence has been restricted by the compliance of the funding party to agree to such an investigation (Morris & Maxwell, 2003).
In 2001, Sir Iain Glidewell led a commission into the operations of CPS. This resulted into a decentralisation of the service approximately corresponding to the 43 police districts in the United Kingdom and Wales. This move resulted in enhanced motivation and greater local accountability following an era of low motivation and service stagnation. However, a lot remains to be achieved in reforming the CPS into a contemporary agency that operates on behalf of the public, but there are indications that the changes are factual, and more legal representatives are seeing the prosecution agency as an avenue where they are ready to make a career (Morris & Maxwell, 2003).
Effectiveness of the policies
The policies have not been completely effective in crime prevention among the young people in that there are various factors that need to be considered and have been left out. For instance, the interaction between poor neighbourhoods and personal, family and peer factors are in a better position of explaining high rate of juvenile offenders in areas of low economic status. There is also a very strong association between crime rates, areas of low economic status and violent crime (Tilley, 2001). This is due to the deprivation of social cohesion and social controls that act as sustaining factors in the society (Morris and Maxwell, 2003). The environment has also been considered a factor in crime rate among the youth. The policies that have so far been put in place have not been very effective in prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour among the young people. This is due to the fact that they have not been able to incorporate all the factors that contribute to the high rate of crime among the young people. Researches that have been carried out as far as crime prevention among the young people is concerned have emphasised on the relationship between individual’s history, social experience and structural factors. This is due to the agreement that crime is aggravated by lack of significant social structures. It is only through the incorporation of all the factors into the criminal justice system that the policies can be effective in reducing the number of juvenile offenders as well as recidivism (Wandersman & Florin, 2003).
Conclusion
The criminal justice system has experienced a lot of improvement in the last two decades especially as far as dealing with young offenders, who have been on the increase. There has been less judicial discrimination, victims have received more support and consideration, prisons have become safer and with better and more humane living conditions, progress in the rates of reoffending among long-term detainees, and a great decline in vehicle crime and burglary, crimes most common with juveniles. These great changes have been contributed by government policies, as well as increased professionalism in the services and enhanced crime prevention. However, there are still some levels of confusion in the courts, particularly concerning trial and sentencing of the young offenders. There are also aspects of constant crisis in the prison system and ongoing demand for changes in the law enforcement and the penal code. With incorporation of all the important factors into the policies, reduction of crime among the young offenders will be realised.
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