AYJ Explains: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill - Serious Violence Duty
Clauses 7-21 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill introduce a multi-agency ‘Serious Violence Duty’. Here, the AYJ examines the Duty and our recommendations for change.
A. The Serious Violence Duty places a statutory duty on a range of authorities including local government, youth offending teams, schools, local health boards, and policing bodies, to collaborate to prevent and reduce serious violence in the area.
The aim of the Duty is to encourage organisations to share information, data and intelligence, and work collaboratively rather than in isolation to tackle serious violence. Those involved must work together to identify the causes of serious violence and make plans to address it. New powers are created for sharing information with each other and with the police.
A. We support the collaborative intention of the Serious Violence Duty. However, if introduced as currently set out, the Serious Violence Duty will have serious unintended consequences for children.
The Duty is focused on crime reduction rather than on the safeguarding and welfare of children involved in violence. In fact, the Duty makes no mention of children or their welfare. We are concerned about the amount of power given to policing bodies in the legislation, and the extremely broad information sharing requirements which risk creating a one-way flow of information to the police.
The information sharing requirements combined with the police-led approach risk increasing the surveillance and enforcement of children’s lives, along with increased racialised profiling and targeting, all of which risks dragging more children into the youth justice system.
Overall, this proposed Serious Violence Duty treats violence as if it is a separate issue to the wider issues impacting children’s safety. It risks undermining trusted relationships, alienating children from the adults who could support them, and further marginalising children involved in violence.
A. A broader strategy is needed which centres the children’s services, safeguarding system, and voluntary services that protect children from harm, with the resources and guidance to do so. This should embed a response that is trauma-informed and considers the context in which children are at risk.
The Duty should be amended to state the need to avoid a criminalising approach to children wherever possible, setting out a priority focus on prevention, early intervention, and diversion.
In legislation, authorities must also be reminded of their safeguarding and welfare duties, and that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration. The Duty should explicitly state that the main function of any disclosure of information regarding a child is to safeguard their welfare.
We support a number of amendments tabled by Sarah Jones MP, which aim to adjust the focus of the Duty towards safeguarding children involved in serious violence, and which would improve training and national oversight around child criminal exploitation and serious violence.
For more information on the Serious Violence Duty or other measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, read our full briefing here.