Liberal Democrat peers led the way in criticising New Labour’s failing record on youth justice.

Lord Thomas of Gresford, the party’s justice spokesman in the House of Lords, led a debate in which he responded to a report, published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, assessing Labour’s approach to youth justice. Lord Thomas criticised Labour’s reliance on punitive measures in dealing with young people, calling, instead, for greater emphasis on welfare and crime prevention.

Lord Gresford highlighted the key findings of the report, saying:

“The report’s most significant finding is the move away from a welfare approach to dealing with children and young people, to one which relies far more on punishment. ‘New Labour, new punitiveness’ is a phrase that has been coined to describe it. Secondly, the report concludes that the Government sought to introduce a more managerialist approach to tackling youth crime, focusing on ‘processing’ young offenders from arrest to sentence. The only target it set that has been hit has been from Mr Prescott's little five pledges card getting children quicker through the courts and into custody.”

Lord Gresford went on to describe the Government’s “perversion of the criminal justice system,” arguing that it has lost sight of its remit. The criminal justice system, he suggested, has taken on “a new function: social engineering, a tool for risk management.”

Going on to detail the full extent of the Government’s failings, Lord Gresford said:

“The cost in human lives has been terrible: 30 children have died in custody, mostly through suicide. But does incarceration work? The report indicates that, despite claims by the [Youth Justice Board], which again have had to be revised and reduced, the rate of reoffending has not significantly improved. Therefore, we are looking at a distressing policy failure. The Government’s youth justice policy has failed in all aspects. It is wrong in principle to use the courts of justice for social engineering, and it has proved useless in practice. The so-called reforms of 1998 are not value for money and they have diverted funds from fundamental social issues which are the causes of crime.”

Lord Dholakia also spoke during the debate. He highlighted that, while crime rates fell between 2002 and 2006, the number of children prosecuted rose by 26 per cent. Lord Dholakia went on to detail the inefectivness of the tools used to prosecute children. He said:

“12,000 ASBOs were issued up to December 2006, half of which - 50 per cent - were breached. About 63 per cent of those who break an ASBO will end up in a custodial sentence.”

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer underlined another government failure. She said:

“the Government’s target was to ensure that all young people subject to community intervention or released from custody had appropriate accommodation when they left. However, that accommodation is not provided. Many young people do not know where they are going to go when they leave custody.”

Lord Addington called for the better provision of education for young offenders in custody. He highlighted the need for those with dyslexia, a high proportion of young offenders, to be given the special assistance they require.

Lord Thomas of Gresford concluded the debate by saying that we “cannot be satisfied by the way we criminalize and throw into custody our young children, as we do now.”