The contributions in this volume raise important policy questions with respect to three overlapping areas outlined in the Introduction: the suitability of the current custodial system for children and young people; the scope for more effective resettlement opportunties; and an examination of where accountability should reside for children and young people sent to custody. It is to this latter point that we now turn in our conclusions.

The legacy of organic growth

Any analysis of custodial provision for children and young people is likely to be somewhat critical and bleak in outlook. The sentencing of a young person to custody is, by its very nature, an admission of failure by a system struggling to square the competing demands for punishment and rehabilitation. It is an imperfect system and the contributors here pull no punches in identifying its shortcomings. But, before looking at the contributions in a little more detail, it may be worth dwelling briefly on some of the features of custody prior to 1999, three years after Misspent youth (Audit Commission, 1996) criticised the system for its costliness and its inability to reduce reoffending. The incoming New Labour administration responded in 1997 with No more excuses (Home Office, 1997) in which it also acknowledged that custodial provision was unsatisfactory. Both of these publications were influential in setting the foundations for the reform of custodial provision implemented subsequently over the last decade and providing the context for some of the current debate outlined in the Youth Crime Action Plan (YCAP) (HM Government, 2008).

Many commentators, including those in this volume (see Chapters 1 and 3), highlight the steep rise in the use of custody after 1991, and No more excuses recognised that no system had been devised, much less implemented, to cope with the secure estate population explosion during the 1990s. The process of placement into custody was at that time a lottery, with little regard for the young person's needs and a rigid dispersal policy driven by a system of feeder courts with regular deliveries by the escort service. Young people were routinely transported with adults and accommodated in adult establishments. There were no agreed regime standards for children, despite increasing scrutiny from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and 23-hours-a-day lock-up was not unusual.