AYJ response to Justice Select Committee inquiry Rehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending January 2025

On 4 February, the AYJ’s written evidence to the Justice Select Committee’s Rehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending inquiry was published and our CEO Jess Mullen gave oral evidence to the committee. Our evidence highlights just how far the children’s secure estate is from providing a rehabilitative regime to children.

Our response highlights the dire state of the children’s secure estate and the barriers this presents to children’s rehabilitation and resettlement. Staff shortages, high levels of violence, and ineffective behaviour management mean children are subjected to  excessive time in cells, and a lack of access to education and rehabilitative activities.

We set out that the best way to meet the needs of children and ensure desistance is to ensure children are never sentenced or remanded to custody unless it is an absolute last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. Work with children to support desistance should focus on long-term healthy development, facilitated through caring professional relationships and Youth Justice Services in the community are in a far better position to be able to provide this than the failing custodial estate. To meet the needs of children for whom custody is deemed necessary, all children must be held in small, welfare-based and rights-respecting establishments close to their home. We also highlight the need to strengthen partnerships with voluntary and community sector organisations to support children before, during, and after custody. This must include organisations led by and for Black and racially minoritised people that are able to provide culturally appropriate services for racially minoritised children who are disproportionately affected by systemic failures.

Ultimately, long-term solutions to reoffending (and entrance into the youth justice system in the first place) lie outside the justice system. Tackling social determinants of vulnerability, crime and violence—such as poverty, exclusion from education, and inadequate safeguarding—is critical. The government must shift resources towards prevention, ensuring children are supported before they ever come into contact with the criminal justice system and where they do, the priority is making children safer as a result.

Read our full submission to the inquiry here.

To see our CEO, Jess Mullen, giving evidence, watch the video here.