Phil Bowen
It was inevitable that the establishment of an innovative project in Hampshire, where young people preside over the cases of peers who have committed low-level crime, would attract press attention. It is not my or the Centre’s place to comment on the dismissive tone nor the mock moral outrage of the prosecutorial piece that ran on the project in the Mail on Sunday. However, it is only right that a good idea like this gets its own day in court and I am happy to bear witness for the defence.
My starting point is the simple legal principle that opinion should always been less interesting to a jury than the evidence. And the evidence all points to encouraging the type of approach being tested in Hampshire. There is now an abundant number of studies which show if young people are formally involved in justice system too early, it can actually increase their offending and lengthen their criminal careers. That’s right- the prescription floated in the Mail of putting these young people in front of court is likely to cause more crime rather than less. It's why there are now over 1,000 such projects in the USA alone. Moreover, there is international evidence that this very model of youth diversion, the peer-court, can work. An Urban Institute study looked at 4 peer-led youth courts in the USA and found tthree of them significantly reduced re-offending compared to matched cases who received more formal justice processing.
Even if the Mail does not like the fact, the remarkable drop in overall levels of youth crime may be precisely down to the increasing range of diversion schemes that police and youth services are running across the country. The Hampshire peer court, while different in its use of peer mentors, simply fits into this overall policy framework of youth diversion that has been endorsed by successive Governments and which seems to be working.
Of course, the people behind this Hampshire innovation knew that they ran the risk of attracting negative press by starting the peer court. But, in many ways, this early cross examination should be welcome. In being charged with the crime of doing things differently, it gives its supporters a chance to explain it. Every parent knows that young people push boundaries and test the rules. Some of them do so and commit relatively minor crimes— possession of small amounts of drugs, vandalism and getting involved in fights. There is a deterrent effect when the majority of these young people, in trouble for the first time, have their collars felt by the police. But, after that arrest, we really have two options. We can either push those cases through the courts, an expensive intervention which is liable to make them more likely to commit crime again, or we can choose to follow the evidence.
And the evidence suggests that the combination of admonition, the setting of clear boundaries and the support of positive peer role models can significantly improve people’s chances of getting out of crime. Just as we can all see that negative peer behaviour can harm a young person, we should not be shocked that positive role models that young people can empathise with and relate to can provide a naturally powerful incentive to change. Now, it may be that this project, when evaluated over time, doesn't make a difference to the youth crime rate in Hampshire. Maybe, but they have a plausible reason to test it out.
It is perhaps too much to hope that the national press, and the fatuous talking heads they quote, would turn down a chance to sneer. When their self-promotion is set on a collision course with the small matter of what the research says, you can predict what will happen every time. Well, well, what matters it—that is their prerogative, their right and we aren’t likely to change the editorial peccadillos of Fleet Street any time soon. But what they have casually asserted without evidence can just as easily be dismissed, especially where there is an abundance of evidence to the contrary. And I wager that those who argue with the evidence on their side, as the Hampshire innovators have, will always receive a fair and just hearing in the court of British public opinion.