Youth offending team
[1] It deals with young offenders, sets up community services and reparation plans, and attempts to prevent youth recidivism and incarceration.
These meetings are called restorative justice practices and may include family group conferences, victim-offender mediation or restorative justice circles[5][6] Youth offending teams also arrange for Appropriate Adults to accompany under 17s after their arrest in order to advise and support the young person, and observe that they are treated fairly.
Youth Offending Teams can also provide important information relevant to a young persons case to police officers, social workers or the courts.
School leavers also work with education workers if they need to acquire skills to apply for jobs, for example CV writing, form filling, interview advice and so on.
Some educational workers also encourage young people to express their feelings in writing as a way to vent aggravation or to comprehend their difficult situation.
The meetings are informal and typically last an hour but can vary in length depending on the preference of the young person and psychologist.
A young person who received a police reprimand was not required to undertake any work with the YOT, although this may have sometimes been offered on a voluntary basis.
They would visit and assess young offenders and undertake diversionary work before (or after) the formal Final Warning was issued.
[11] Community Resolutions (CR) are a way to deal with less serious crimes that allow police to exercise their professional judgement in how to resolve minor offences.
This can be delivered on the street by an officer without an arrest, for instance by asking the young person to apologise to the victim, and may involve some form of restorative justice.
Community Resolutions do not result in a criminal record, but they are entered onto the Police National Computer (PNC) and can be revealed by certain vetting procedures, such as an enhanced CRB check.
Youth cautions were reintroduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) in April 2013, to replace reprimands and final warnings.
In reintroducing youth cautions the government, in essence, returned to the pre YOT ways of dealing with juvenile offenders who are not prosecuted.
As an alternative to one of the formal disposals listed above, the police may agree to allow the young person to apologise and/or repair damage/ make costs without any further action.
This type of restorative justice, out of course disposal is often used where the young person has had no previous offending history and the offence is considered to be one suitable for resolution without formal intervention[13].
Careful monitoring of their use is required to ensure they are only used appropriately and not primarily as a means of police saving time and/or improving the 'clear up' rate.
Community Panel Members try to agree a Referral Order Contract with the young person and their parent/carer, to prevent their further offending.
At the Panel Meeting, the Community volunteers and a member of the Youth Offending Team will listen to the views of the young person regarding the offence.
The views of witnesses, relatives, and the police may be represented in a report presented by the Youth Offending Team to Panel Members, and will be based on an interview with the young person and their parent/carer.
These contracts may include a letter of apology to the victims, community service, sessional training programs, or advice and support.
As with other court orders, inappropriate actions (arriving for an appointment under the influence, using abusive language, violence, or non-cooperation) will lead to a written warning.
Note that the old Orders, including some of those listed above, continue to exist for those young people who committed a criminal offence prior to the implementation date of 30 November 2009.
