Child psychologists are being given a new directive (in 2016) which is that the age range they work with is increasing from 0-18 to 0-25. There are three stages of adolescence - early adolescence from 12-14 years, middle adolescence from 15-17 years and late adolescence from 18 years and over.
Motoring expert Quentin Willson says statistics show that at the age of 18 the vast majority of accidents caused by young drivers are down to bad judgement and decision making, and that behind the wheel "adult maturity isn't fully formed until you get past 25 for most cases of people". But rather than raise the minimum age for driving, Willson believes parents and teachers should impart safe driving skills before the effects of adolescence really kick in. He feels that "The government should look at this very carefully and put driving on the GCSE syllabus. So you teach kids to drive in terms of theory at school and all the right messages at 13, 14, 15, because when you get to 17 the testosterone is raging, all those corrosive influences are embedded."
In 2011, the Royal Society reported that the age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could be "unreasonably low" given the emerging understanding of how slowly the brains of children mature, and that widespread differences between individuals also mean that the cut-off age at which children are deemed fit to stand trial, at 10 years old, might not be justifiable in all cases. (In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a child is deemed fit to stand trial at the age of 10; in Scotland children cannot be convicted until they are 12. In most European countries it is far higher: 18 in Belgium and 16 in Spain)
What Works to Reduce Reoffending: A Summary of the Evidence.
Justice Analytical Services, Scottish Government [by] Dr. Maria Sapouna, Catherine Bisset and Anne-Marie Conlong. October 2011
- Long-term studies in both the UK and internationally show that offending begins in early adolescence, peaks during the late teens and tapers off in young adulthood. Typically the peak age for offending is around 14 years, with a reduction by age 17 and another decrease by age 23.
- A small number (about 5% of the offender population) "continue to offend throughout adulthood and are responsible for a disproportionally large number of offences. The relationship between age and offending is interpreted as reflecting underlying changes in biology, social contexts, attitudes and life circumstances that influence offenders’ motivation to desist from crime rather than a unitary maturation process".
- Studies consistently find that "the occurrence of key life events such as obtaining and remaining in suitable employment, acquiring a stable partner and completing education degrees increase the likelihood of desistance from offending by adding structure to offenders’ lives and acting as a source of informal monitoring and emotional support. The same effect has been observed when offenders move away from criminal peers. More recently, researchers have stressed that the perceived strength, stability and quality of social attachments matter more than the events per se."
- Persistent young peopleoffenders are less committed to education and employment and most likely to have family members or peers also involved in crime. Persistent offending is often linked to drug addiction (particularly the need to fund a drug addiction).
- Scottish and English data suggest that community sentences are more effective in reducing recidivism than short-term prison sentences (less than 12 months).
- There is clear evidence from both Scotland and England that only a small proportion of offenders released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) reoffend whilst on curfew.
- Findings from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime indicate that the deeper a youth is carried into the formal processing system, the less likely he/ she is to stop offending. The authors argue that the most significant factor in reducing offending is minimal formal intervention and maximum diversion to programming that does not have the trappings of criminal processing
- Positive effects on reoffending have also been reported in the evaluation of the Triage initiative (being piloted in England and Wales in 2011), which diverts young people who have offended for the first time under police custody to support services provided by a youth worker and, where appropriate, restorative justice informed interventions.
- Scotland’s Choice (2008) reported that: prisoners are 13 times more likely to have been in care as a child; 63% of young people have substance misuse issues on admission to prison; of all prisoners 80% have writing, 65% have numeracy; and 50% have reading skills of an 11 year old; and 25% of these young people have clinically significant communication impairment.
- There is strong evidence that provision of practical support in prison is unlikely to have a lasting impact on the risk of reoffending unless it continues upon release. Aftercare should, therefore, form part of a comprehensive intervention package. It is also important that the services provided are appropriately sequenced: for example, employment, while critical in the longer term, is often not a realistic short-term goal until other issues and needs have been addressed.
- What does not work: short term non-residential employment interventions, summer work programmes, diversion from court to job training for young people, arrest for minor offences, increased arrests on drug dealing locations, ‘boot’ camps or ‘scared straight’ programmes (taking young people who offend to adult prisons), ‘shock’ probation, parole or sentencing, home detention and electronic monitoring, and vague unstructured rehabilitation programmes.
