New rehabilitation proposals welcomed in Warwickshire
Warwickshire Youth Justice Service is welcoming new proposals to help rehabilitate young people who have offended.
A green paper called ‘Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders’ suggests plans to wipe clear the criminal record of young people convicted of low level crimes, once they have turned 18.
It is just one of a number of measures in the paper by the Ministry of Justice as part of the government’s look at the objectives of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
If the idea is taken up, it could mean that lesser offences are deleted from the records of those who committed a crime in their teenage years, so they aren’t blighted by a previous low-level conviction in later life.
Lesley Tregear, Manager of Warwickshire’s Youth Justice Service, said: “Warwickshire’s Youth Justice Service is very keen to ensure that every opportunity to help young people understand the affect their behaviour has on their victims and their families as well as themselves.
“We also seek to teach them new skills which will help them gain access to employment or further training. It is important that they learn to balance their rights with their responsibilities and learn to respect others by learning from good role models.
“The proposals to ‘wipe the slate clean’ would act as an incentive for young people, who are not serious or persistent offenders, to ensure that they have a goal to work towards.
“It is true that many young people who find adolescence a particularly difficult time eventually mature and, with support, become law abiding citizens. Of course it is our aim to help them become self-sufficient and be in a position to contribute to society. This would be an important step forward.”
To find out more about Warwickshire’s Youth Justice Service or for details regarding projects available in the reparation directory, visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/yjs.