Introduction

In 2000 the Youth Justice Board (YJB), created by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, sought and was given responsibility for commissioning and purchasing all custodial places in England and Wales required for children and youths by the criminal courts by virtue of their remand and sentencing decisions. The Board took on provision for what is proportionately the largest population of children in penal custody in Western Europe. It was arguably a poisoned chalice. This chapter will consider three questions. What, over the past decade, has been the trend regarding use of custody for children and youths and who are the young people in custody? How is the provision of custody for children organised, managed and made accountable? And what are the prospects for change?

Population trends and characteristics

It is a commonplace that any aspect of social policy considered over so short a period as 10 years is likely to make little sense without an understanding of the broader historical and political context. This is certainly the case when it comes to the peculiarly British addiction to punishment of the young and resort to their custody (see Morgan, 2007, pp 201-8; Morgan and Newburn, 2007, Chapter 30). For present purposes it must suffice to say that when New Labour came to power in 1997 they inherited a surge in the numbers of children in custody but introduced policies that did nothing effectively to reverse that upward trend. Indeed, in several important respects, Labour took further their Conservative predecessors’ punitive approach, all part of their electoral winning mantra of being ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, priority being given to the first part of that equation. Nor, during their subsequent victorious electoral campaigns, did Labour demonstrate any embarrassment about the record high numbers of young offenders in custody. They never maintained that the number of children in custody was an achievement, but, in 2001, ‘arresting, convicting, punishing and rehabilitating persistent young offenders’ was a key policy undertaking (Labour Party, 2001, p 32), and in 2005 the fact that they had built ‘over 16,000 more prison places [additional places, which included those for young offenders] than there were in 1997’ was reported as an achievement (Labour Party, 2005, p 3). There were to be, as Labour's key policy statement on youth justice proclaimed in 1997, No more excuses (Home Office, 1997).