Youth crime and youth justice: Public opinion in England and Wales 9781447367031

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Youth crime and youth justice Public opinion in England and Wales Mike Hough and Julian V. Roberts

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First published in Great Britain in November 2004 by The Policy Press The Policy Press University of Bristol Fourth Floor, Beacon House Queen’s Road Bristol BS8 1QU UK Tel no +44 (0)117 331 4054 Fax no +44 (0)117 331 4093 E-mail [email protected] www.policypress.org.uk © Mike Hough, Julian V. Roberts and the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King’s College London, 2004 ISBN 1 86134 649 2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this report is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this report has been requested. The right of Mike Hough and Julian V. Roberts to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owners. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the authors and not of The University of Bristol or The Policy Press. The University of Bristol and The Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. The Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Qube Design Associates, Bristol Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books, Bodmin

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Contents

List of boxes and tables .....................................................................................................................................v Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................................vii Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................viii Summary....................................................................................................................................................................ix 1.

Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 Previous research.....................................................................................................................................2 The present study....................................................................................................................................3 The survey....................................................................................................................................................4 Outline of the report ............................................................................................................................6

2.

Crime by young offenders .................................................................. 7 Few people identify youth crime as the single most important crime...................7 problem today Most people believe that the number of young offenders has been ......................9 increasing Drug crimes perceived to be increasing at fastest rate ................................................10 People over-estimate the proportion of crime for which young............................ 11 offenders are responsible Many people over-estimate the percentage of youth crime ..................................... 13 involving violence Almost half the polled public thinks that there is more youth crime in ............. 13 Britain than other Western nations Most people over-estimate the proportion of young offenders who.................14 are reconvicted Most people see youth today as less respectful than previous................................16 generations Summary ....................................................................................................................................................17

3.

The youth justice system ...................................................................19 People favour different crime reduction strategies for youth and adults ..........19 Purposes of sentencing......................................................................................................................21 Public ascribe different purposes to sentencing young and adult offenders....21 Purpose of prison for young and adult offenders .............................................................23 The new system of youth justice: an unnoticed reform...............................................24 Ratings and perceptions of youth courts: negative ratings persist.........................24

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Youth court sentences perceived to be too lenient .......................................................25 Perceptions of leniency linked to evaluations of youth courts .................................27 Summary ....................................................................................................................................................28 4.

Sentencing preferences in specific cases ........................................ 29 Sentencing preferences and expectations of sentencing practices........................30 Restorative sentencing and young offenders.......................................................................32 Support for imprisoning young offender falls when restorative..............................33 gestures made Acceptability of substitute sanctions.........................................................................................35 Public find alternative sanctions to constitute acceptable alternative..................36 to prison Testing the ‘substitute sanction’ hypothesis in other jurisdictions..........................37 Leading questions?................................................................................................................................38 Perceptions of restorative sentences........................................................................................38 Relationship between general views of sentencing and evaluations of ...............40 specific sentence Effect of making costs salient.........................................................................................................41 Summary ....................................................................................................................................................42

5.

Conclusions......................................................................................... 45 Lessons for policy..................................................................................................................................46

References...............................................................................................................................................................49 Appendix: Survey questionnaire...............................................................................................................53

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List of boxes and tables Boxes 1.1 4:1 4.2 4.3

Key findings from the 1998 British Crime Survey (BCS) ................................................4 Scenarios used in reparative sentencing question............................................................33 Case histories used to test public acceptance of alternatives to ............................37 imprisonment Sentencing with and without information about the costs of sanctions ............42

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

Perceptions of most serious crime problem (forced choice format) (%).............8 Perceptions of most serious crime problem (open-ended question ......................9 format) (%) Perceptions of changes in number of young offenders over past two ................10 years (%) Source of perception that youth crime has increased (%) ......................................... 11 Perceptions of amount of crime committed by young offenders (%) ................. 12 Public estimates of the percentage of youth and adult crime involving..............14 violence (%) Perceptions of youth crime in Britain compared to other European...................15 nations (%) Public estimates of reconviction rates of young and adult offenders (%) .........16 Perceptions of teenagers today, compared to 20 years ago, by age of...............17 respondent (%) Public perceptions of the best way to reduce crime by young and adult..........20 offenders (%) Public perceptions of most important purpose of sentencing, young .................22 offenders and adults (%) Views on the purpose of prison for young offenders and adult..............................23 offenders (%) Public knowledge of YOTS (%)....................................................................................................25 Public ratings of youth courts (%) ..............................................................................................25 Public ratings of youth courts in the UK and US (%).....................................................26 Perceptions of leniency/severity of youth justice system (%) ...................................26 Perceptions of youth court sentencing: Canada versus England and ...................27 Wales (%) Relationship between ratings of youth courts and perceptions of ......................28 leniency (%)

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3.10 Relationship between perceptions of youth crime trends and ratings of..........28 youth justice (%) 4.1 Public sentencing preferences, three 16-year-old offenders (%)............................31 4.2 Public sentencing preferences, cases with and without restorative......................34 steps (%) 4.3 Tests of substitute sanction hypothesis, three independent studies ...................39 4.4 Perceptions of appropriateness of custody versus restorative sanction,...........40 17-year-old offender (%) 4.5 Perceptions of youth justice system and ratings of a specific sentence (%).....40 4.6 Public sentencing preferences: impact of highlighting costs of sanctions ...........42

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for funding this study. We would also like to thank the staff at the Office for National Statistics for their help in designing the survey. We are grateful to John Graham for help in initiating the project and for commenting on earlier drafts. We would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for a number of drafting comments.

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Foreword

Youth justice has been shamefully neglected by criminological research. The vast majority of those who come into contact with the criminal justice system as offenders start their criminal careers as young people. Only a small proportion progress to become persistent adult offenders. People’s pathways into and out of crime are settled quite largely when they are in their teens. Yet we still know remarkably little about how best to deal with young offenders. We need to know not only how well the youth justice system works but also how well people think it works. We need to know whether people trust it to be fair and effective. The criminal justice system has to command public confidence, because compliance with the rule of law depends ultimately on the perceived legitimacy of the institutions of law. Thus I welcome this important study. It is a first step in mapping how the public views youth justice, and how they think that young offenders should be dealt with. The report illustrates the complex and multilayered nature of public opinion on this topic. A large majority of the public expresses considerable scepticism about the youth justice system. Most think it does a poor job. Yet most people are demonstrably ill-informed – some might argue, misinformed – about youth crime and youth justice. On the face of it, most people want the youth justice system to be much tougher in their response to young offenders. Yet the more detail they are given about specific cases, the greater tolerance they show for restorative or rehabilitative responses that too often get portrayed as ‘soft options’. Perhaps the single most important lesson to draw from this study is that simple preconceptions about public opinion turn out to be misconceptions. Rod Morgan Chair, Youth Justice Board

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Summary This report describes and discusses findings from the first survey to systematically explore public opinion, youth crime and justice in Britain. The survey, conducted in 2003, explored public knowledge of important questions pertaining to youth crime and justice, as well as attitudes to the sentencing of young offenders. In light of its relevance for youth justice, particular emphasis was placed on public reaction to ‘restorative’ sentencing. Wherever possible, these findings are placed in international context through comparisons with surveys of the public in other jurisdictions.

The study This report presents findings from the first national, representative survey of public attitudes to youth crime and youth justice in England and Wales. The survey was conducted in 2003. The aim of the study was to take stock of public knowledge and opinion after the first four years of the new youth justice system and to assess: • • • •

levels of public confidence in youth justice; levels of public knowledge and understanding about the youth justice system; the relationship between knowledge about, and confidence in, youth justice; whether people find current youth sentencing practice broadly acceptable.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Omnibus Survey is conducted on a monthly basis. Clients in government departments, universities and private sector organisations purchase blocks of questions posed during a face-to-face interview conducted by professionally trained interviewers that typically lasts for less than an hour. This research made use of the survey conducted in April 2003, purchasing a block of around 30 questions that took around 15 minutes to complete. The questions were asked of 1,792 people aged 16+ across England and Wales. The response rate for the April 2003 administration was 67% , comparable to the response rates of previous sweeps of the survey.

Key findings This study has brought us closer to understanding the nature of contemporary public opinion about youth crime and youth justice in England and Wales. Opinion

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on the topic is multilayered and sometimes contradictory in nature. There is considerable pessimism about trends in youth crime, but in part this reflects systematic misperceptions. • Most people think that young people are less respectful now than previous generations. • Most people believe that the number of young offenders has increased since 2001, although statistical trends suggest that this is only true for a limited range of offences. • Most people over-estimate the proportion of all crime for which young offenders are responsible, and the proportion of youth crime involving violence. • Most people over-estimate the proportion of young offenders who will be reconvicted of a criminal offence. • Over three quarters of the sample acknowledged that they had not heard anything about Youth Offending Teams (YOTs). • Most respondents rated youth courts as doing a poor job. Only 10% rated youth courts as doing a good job. • Most people believe that sentences imposed on young offenders are too lenient. This finding is consistent with survey data in other countries. Coexisting with this public pessimism and scepticism is a different and somewhat contradictory set of attitudes. The public is not as concerned about youth crime as some commentators have suggested. Youth crime is an important issue for the public, but it is not perceived to be the most important or the most serious crime problem today. People also distinguish clearly between crimes committed by adults and those committed by young offenders in thinking about effective responses. For example: • While people tended to see tougher sentencing as the best way of reducing adult crime, more discipline in schools was the most popular choice for reducing youth crime. • Rehabilitation was seen as more important for juveniles than adult offenders. • Punishment was seen as more important for adult prisons than for juvenile institutions, while education and job training were seen as being more relevant to juvenile than to adult prisons. Nor do people favour locking up young offenders as much as one might infer from their responses to general questions about the adequacy of youth court sentencing. When asked to ‘pass sentence’ in specific cases, there was a wide spread of preferences, even for quite serious offences committed by young offenders with previous convictions, which typically would attract custodial sentences. • Respondents generally thought that the courts would impose sentences that were softer than their preference. • Nevertheless there was strong support for non-custodial options.

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Summary

• The more detail that respondents had about the person they were ‘sentencing’, the less likely they were to favour the imposition of a term of custody. If the young offender had made some restorative steps (such as writing a letter of apology and promising to compensate the victim), support for custody as a punishment declined further. • Many of those people who selected custody regarded community penalties as acceptable substitutes for custody when these involve supervision and reparation. • When respondents were told about the costs of custody, they were significantly less likely to favour imprisoning the offender.

Key conclusions The survey revealed that the public have a more pessimistic view of youth crime than is justified by the official crime statistics. Although only one specific youth justice reform was the subject of an awareness question, it also seems likely that the public knows little about the structure of youth justice in Britain. An important criminal justice priority is therefore to promote awareness of the system, and of the true scope of the youth crime problem. The public gives poor ratings to the youth courts in Britain, in large measure because they believe that the sentences imposed on young offenders are too lenient. The dissatisfaction that people express with youth justice is real, whether or not it is grounded in the realities of current sentencing practice. There has to be some response to these public views. There is a pressing need to improve the quality of information available to the public about youth crime and youth justice. While people generally thought that the youth courts were too soft, the study also found strong support for alternatives to imprisonment, especially when the scope for community penalties was drawn to respondents’ attention. When public opinion is complex and multilayered in this way, there can be no policy justification for privileging people’s unconsidered desire for tougher punishment and ignoring other dimensions to their views. Finally, there is clearly potential for building on public support for new approaches to sentencing young offenders, including reparation. Like sentencers, citizens want offenders to apologise, to express remorse, to feel remorse and to translate this emotion into some form of practical reparation for the crime victim. The practicalities of putting viable reparative schemes into effect are challenging, but the potential of such schemes is obvious.

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1

Introduction

H

ow much concern is there among the British public about youth crime? How much do people know about youth crime trends, and what do they think of the youth justice system in this country? How much confidence do people have in the youth justice system in England and Wales? Does the public have a realistic understanding of the way that the youth justice system functions? To date, public opinion researchers in England and Wales have not comprehensively addressed these questions. Public concern about crime by young offenders ebbs and flows. It is often inflamed by specific incidents or short-term changes in youth crime rates. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, many people believed that juvenile delinquency had entered a new and more serious phase, with the emergence first of ‘teds’ and then of ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’. In the 1980s and early 1990s, youth crime rates rose, giving rise to concern about the effectiveness of the criminal justice response. Then there are those rare cases of horrific crimes committed by juveniles, which understandably capture media and public attention, such as the murder of James Bulger by two pre-teen boys in 1993. The trial, imprisonment, and the eventual release under supervision of the perpetrators ensured that youth justice remained at the centre of public debate about crime and justice. The issue of teenage gangs has also emerged and re-submerged from time to time, with a predictable impact on public attitudes to young offenders. Britons are not alone in this respect; the public in most Western nations are concerned about youth crime (see Roberts, 2004), and juvenile justice constitutes a criminal justice priority in these countries (see Tonry and Doob, 2004). Given the high levels of public concern, it is no surprise that the youth justice system in England and Wales has been subject to significant reform since 1998. The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act created a system of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), and set up the Youth Justice Board to oversee YOTs (for further information, see www.yjb.gov.uk; Dignan, 2000; Home Office, 2003; Bottoms and Dignan, 2004). Some key features of the new youth justice system are: • • • •

reduced police discretion in the use of multiple cautions; earlier and more intensive preventive intervention; a wider range of court disposals, including reparation; more expeditious responses to persistent offending.

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The YOTs are multidisciplinary teams comprising social workers, probation officers, police officers, educationalists, drug workers, housing officers and health authority staff. These professionals pool their skills and draw on their common experience to devise an appropriate response to youth offending. There have been numerous legislative and administrative changes introduced since the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. The new court disposals include curfew orders, electronic tagging, secure remands for offenders aged 12-15, and Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes (ISSPs) for persistent young offenders. A recent Audit Commission (2004) report found that the new system has made considerable progress in ensuring that young offenders are dealt with adequately when they come to the attention of the police, and that when this happens action is taken more rapidly than in the past. Moreover, the proportion of young offenders making amends for their offending has also risen substantially. The Youth Justice Board has always espoused a clear preventive philosophy, and there is general agreement within the youth justice system that young offenders should be imprisoned only as a last resort. The belief is widely held among sentencers, youth justice workers and academics that imprisonment damages young people intensely and has more negative consequences for young people than adults (for example, NACRO, 2003). Despite this, the imprisoned juvenile offender population has almost doubled since the 1990s, and approaching three quarters of the Youth Justice Board budget is now consumed by the costs of imprisonment for young offenders. In short, we are faced with a paradox: sentencers and criminal justice practitioners have little faith in imprisonment as a response to youth crime, and yet imprisonment remains widely used. One explanation is that sentencers and those responsible for youth justice policy believe that public opinion is intolerant of less punitive but more constructive responses to youth crime. Given this set of beliefs about public opinion, sentencers probably feel constrained about their ability to employ more constructive and cost-effective – if less punitive – ways of dealing with young offenders. The Audit Commission report lends some weight to this view. Their survey of magistrates found that almost half said that they took account of public opinion when sentencing young offenders.

Previous research There is now a considerable body of research that demonstrates that public opinion is negative about the quality and competence of the adult justice system (for example, Hough and Moxon, 1988; Walker and Hough, 1988; Ashworth and Hough, 1996; Hough, 1996; Roberts and Stalans, 1997; Russell and Morgan, 2001a, 2001b; Hough and Roberts, 1999; Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black, 2000; Chapman et al, 2002; Roberts and Hough, 2002; Roberts et al, 2003). The British public

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Introduction

has a low regard for the work of sentencers, and most people feel that the courts are far too soft towards offenders. At the same time, people are demonstrably misinformed, generally over-estimating the leniency of sentences imposed. Indeed, the people who are the most misinformed about sentencing practices tend to be the most critical of sentencers (Hough and Roberts, 1998). When asked to ‘sentence’ specific cases, people make choices that are fairly consistent with current practice, albeit with wide variation from the draconian to the very lenient. However, only a single study, by Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black (2000), has included questions about attitudes towards youth crime and justice. This is surprising in light of the intense public interest in, and media attention to, crime committed by young offenders, and the criminal justice response. Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black analysed responses to some questions carried by the 1998 sweep of the British Crime Survey (BCS). Since that research serves as the point of departure for the present study, it is worth summarising its principal findings (see Box 1.1).

The present study This report presents findings from a national, representative survey of public attitudes to youth crime and youth justice in England and Wales. The aim of the study was to take stock of public knowledge and opinion after the first four years of the new youth justice system and to assess: • • • •

levels of public confidence in youth justice; levels of public knowledge and understanding about the youth justice system; the relationship between knowledge about, and confidence in, youth justice; whether people find current youth sentencing practice broadly acceptable.

Our results are presented in relation to the only previous analysis of public attitudes in this area. However, we aim to accomplish more than simply report the findings from a nationwide survey. Many of the attitudes of the British public towards youth crime and justice are shared with the public in other countries with different youth crime problems and youth justice systems. This concordance of views suggests that some of the opinions that people in this country hold about youth crime are founded on media reports rather than statistical trends. The report documents both public knowledge of youth crime, and attitudes towards youth justice, as the latter can only be understood by first considering the former. The questions focused on three areas: (i) public knowledge of youth crime; (ii) views on ways of responding to youth crime; and (iii) opinion about the sentencing of young offenders. In light of its growing popularity, and particular application to young offenders (see Walgrave, 2002; Crawford and Newburn, 2003), we pay special attention to public reaction to ‘restorative’ sentencing options for young offenders. Finally, for a number of questions, we make comparisons

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Box 1.1: Key Findings from the 1998 British Crime Survey (BCS) Knowledge about youth crime People over-estimated the proportion of crime for which young offenders are responsible. Although about 11% of known offenders were juveniles (aged between 10 and 17), 28% of respondents felt that young offenders were responsible for most crime committed. People over-estimated the proportion of youth crime for which females are responsible. Although only a fifth of all young offenders were female, nearly a third of the public believed that youth crime was committed equally by females and males. People held inaccurate views of youth crime trends. Although the number of young offenders had declined slightly in the two years preceding the survey, roughly two thirds of the BCS respondents thought that the number of young offenders had increased. Opinion about youth justice The public held quite negative views of juvenile courts. Only 14% of respondents thought that these courts were doing a good or excellent job. Ratings of youth courts were lower than for any other component of the criminal justice system. Most people believed that youth courts were too lenient. Fully 40% of respondents held the view that the treatment of young offenders was “much too lenient”. Source: Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black, 2000

between attitudes to young and adult offenders. No such comparisons have previously been explored in this country1.

The survey The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Omnibus Survey is conducted on a monthly basis. Clients in government departments, universities and private sector organisations purchase blocks of questions posed during an interview that typically lasts for less than an hour. Around 1,800 people aged 16+ are interviewed in 1

A survey of Canadian public opinion reported by Doob et al (1998) is the only published research that we have identified which has compared public opinion with respect to the sentencing of adult and juvenile offenders.

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Introduction

person by professionally trained interviewers across England, Wales and Scotland. Quality checks on fieldwork are carried out by means of recall interviews with a proportion of respondents to ensure that the interviews actually took place, and to verify that the responses to the questions are consistent. Weighting factors are applied to the data to correct for unequal probability of selection caused by interviewing only a single adult per household. This research made use of the survey conducted in April 2003, purchasing a block of around 30 questions that took around 15 minutes to complete. The response rate for the April 2003 survey was 67% , comparable to the response rate of other recent sweeps. The module on youth crime and youth justice was restricted to the population in England and Wales, as Scotland has a separate system of youth justice. This reduced the sample to a total of 1,692. Respondents were first asked about the nature of youth crime problems facing the country, the nature of offenders, and youth justice trends. After these – largely factual – questions they answered a series of attitudinal questions about the aims of sentencing, and the adequacy of sentencing. Finally, the module ended with a series of vignettes in which respondents were asked to say what sentences the offenders should get, what sentences they were likely to get, and whether they regarded various sentences as acceptable. Throughout the questionnaire youth crime was defined as crimes committed by people under the age of 18, and young offenders were defined as those aged between 10 and 17 inclusive. In order to maximise the coverage of topics in the questionnaire, questions were sometimes varied between sub-samples; for these purposes the sample was split into two, and occasionally three, groups. In some cases, respondents were randomly assigned to receive different versions of the same question, thereby creating a random experiment within the structure of the survey. When a question was posed to only half (or a third) of the sample, this is indicated in the text or tables; otherwise, the question was put to the entire sample. Finally, in order to ensure that respondents fully understood the response options available, show cards were used throughout the administration of the survey. As with any survey, the estimates presented in this report are subject to sampling error. Where, for example, we present an estimate of 20% drawing on the full sample, the ‘true’ figure for the entire population might fall anywhere between the limits of 17.5% and 22.5%; for a 40% estimate, the true figure could fall between 17% and 23% 2 . As a rule of thumb, differences between sub-groups of 2

This assumes a ‘design effect’ of 1.2, reflecting the fact that the sample design involves geographical clustering. Sampling error is a function mainly of sample size, but also of the size of the proportion. For any given sample size, the sampling error for an estimate of 5% is smaller than that for an estimate of 50% . As sampling error reduces in inverse proportion to the square root of the sample size, estimates based on the full sample of 1,692 are twice as precise as those based on sub-samples of about 400.

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five percentage points or more are likely to be statistically significant where the sample is split into equal sub-samples – as in comparisons between the sexes, for example. Where the sample is split less evenly – for example, one third/two thirds – differences of seven percentage points are usually statistically significant.

Outline of the report Chapter 2 presents findings on public knowledge of, and attitudes towards, youth crime. Chapter 3 summarises attitudes to the youth justice system and responses to youth crime. Both chapters provide some context for Chapter 4, which forms the heart of the report; this chapter presents findings on people’s sentencing preferences in specific cases. Chapter 5 discusses the policy implications of these findings. The relevant section of the questionnaire is reproduced as the Appendix in this report.

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2

Crime by young offenders

T

he first part of the module measured public knowledge and attitudes about youth crime. It began with questions designed to provide some context within which to locate these attitudes. At the start of the module – before they had become sensitised to the issue – respondents were asked how serious a problem youth crime was, relative to other crime problems. The question was asked in two different ways. Half the respondents were given a show card with a list of five crime problems, and were asked to identify the most serious problem. Providing respondents with response options in a forced choice format has the disadvantage of prejudging the options. There are two risks with this approach. Having been prompted, respondents may support an option that would not have occurred to them unprompted. On the other hand, the questionnaire necessarily limits the range of options open to respondents, and may actually rule out preferred options for some respondents. We therefore asked the other half of the sample to specify the most important crime problem without being provided with options, in an open-ended format.

Few people identify youth crime as the single most important crime problem today Table 2.1 shows that when participants were provided with response options, no single crime problem was identified by a majority of respondents 1. Drug-related crime was the problem identified as the most important by the largest minority (35% of the sample). Crime by sex offenders was identified by just over one quarter of the sample, and terrorist crime by 16% 2 . Crime by young offenders was the fourth most frequently cited response, accounting for 15% of the sample. This pattern of findings suggests that when placed in comparison to other crime problems, youth crime is seen as the most important problem by only a minority of the public. This does not mean that the public is unconcerned about youth crime; the format of the question means that a problem could be seen as very important by most 1

2

Throughout this report, we have generally excluded ‘don’t know’, when these represent 2% or less of the total responses. It should be remembered that fieldwork took place in April 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, when the ‘war against terrorism’ was probably very salient in people’s minds.

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Table 2.1: Perceptions of most serious crime problem (forced choice format) (%) Respondents Drug-related crime Crime by sex offenders Terrorist crimes Crime by young offenders Crime by adult offenders Other crime Total

36 26 16 15 5 3 100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘In your view which one of the following crime problems is the most serious at present?’. 2. Total may exceed 100% due to rounding. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n =834.

respondents, although not necessarily the most important. This point can be illustrated by findings from other countries. When Americans have been asked to identify the most important social problem, crime is seldom cited by more than a small percentage of respondents, although it is clearly of concern to many (see Roberts et al, 2003, Figure 2.1). In Canada, the percentage of the public citing crime as the most important problem has not exceeded 5% in the past decade (see Roberts, 2001, Table 4). However, when asked to rate the importance of crime as a problem, almost one third of respondents assigned the highest rating (‘very important’). Thus crime can be a very important issue for many people, even if they identify the economy, or health care as the most important social problem. It is also noteworthy that crime by young offenders was far more likely than adult crime to be identified as the most important crime problem. When the question was asked in an open-ended format, without the benefit of prompted response options, youth crime was not identified by a significant proportion of respondents (see Table 2.2). Instead, people cited a number of different serious crimes, with the highest percentage citing drug crimes 3 . The fact that youth crime did not emerge in the free choice question, and was identified by only 15% of the sample responding to the forced choice question, suggests that public concern about youth crime may not be as great in Britain as in some other countries. For example, when Canadians were asked to identify important priorities for the government, youth crime attracted more responses than any other issue, including health care or the economy (Angus Reid Group Inc, 1998). Most recently, a national

3

As with many opinions held by the British public and discussed in this report, the concern about drug crime is shared by people in other countries. For example, when the American public was asked about five potential dangers threatening their children, drugs were identified as the number one concern (Public Management, 1997).

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Table 2.2: Perceptions of most serious crime problem (open-ended question format) (%) Drug crime Murder Robbery/mugging Child abuse Violence/assault Burglary Other (includes sexual offences; theft; gun crimes; abduction)

Respondents 26 15 11 10 10 10 37

Notes: 1. Question: ‘What in your view is the most serious crime problem at present?’. 2. Total exceeds 100% due to multiple responses. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n =844.

sample in Canada was asked to identify the most important justice-related issue, and youth crime attracted the highest percentage of respondents (Compas, 2002).

Most people believe that the number of young offenders has been increasing Respondents were asked: ‘Has the number of young offenders increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past two years?’. Consistent with the well-established finding that the majority of the population think that the crime rate is rising, most people believe that the number of young offenders has increased since 2001. Table 2.3 provides a breakdown of responses. As can be seen, fully three quarters held the view that the number of young offenders had increased since 2001. Determining the ‘right’ answer to this question is not as straightforward as it may seem. Most crimes recorded by the police are undetected, and the age of the offenders is consequently unknown. The same is true for British Crime Survey (BCS) estimates. However, four assertions about crime rates can be made with some certainty: • overall levels of crime fell over this period; • overall numbers of young offenders coming to police attention fell between 2000 and 2002 by 9%; • for a few crime categories, notably those involving drugs, robbery and violence, the number of known young offenders rose; • self-report surveys show no rise in youth offending (see Audit Commission, 2004). From these findings we would conclude that in general, youth crime rates have been stable or declining, with the exception of certain offences.

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Table 2.3: Perceptions of changes in number of young offenders over past two years (%) Number of young offenders has:

Respondents

Increased

75

Stayed the same

17

Decreased

2

Don’t know/no opinion

5

Total

100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Has the number of young offenders increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past two years?’. 2. Total does not equal 100% due to rounding. 3. Shaded rows are most likely to be accurate. 4. Weighted data, unweighted n =1,691.

The finding that most people believe that youth offending is on the increase is consistent with the result reported by Mattinson and Mirrlees-Black (2000). Those researchers found that two thirds of respondents to the 1998 BCS believed that the number of young offenders had increased over the previous two years; according to Home Office estimates the number had declined by 12% . The trend in Table 2.3 also conforms to findings from surveys of the public regarding youth crime in other countries, where most people believe youth crime trends are increasing regardless of the actual trends 4 . Similarly, at the adult level, polls have for decades shown that public perceptions of crime trends tend to be independent of actual crime trends. Whether crime rates are rising, falling or stable, the majority of the public in all Western nations in which the question has been posed believe crime is on the increase (for a review, see Roberts and Stalans, 1997).

Drug crimes perceived to be increasing at fastest rate Respondents who had said that the number of young offenders had increased were asked whether there were any specific crimes involving young people that they believed were increasing particularly fast. Almost two thirds of the sample cited drug crimes, while almost half (45%) identified thefts of mobile phones. A further 44% cited violent crime, and 29% crimes involving guns. Once again drug crime heads the list, suggesting considerable public concern about that issue.

4

There are a number of demonstrations of this phenomenon. For example, a survey of Californian residents found that more than four out of five respondents believed that the juvenile crime rate had been increasing over the previous five years. In reality, the number of juvenile arrests in California had declined significantly (see Steinhart, 1988, and for additional material, Roberts, 2004).

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What is the origin of the public belief that the number of young offenders is on the increase? We asked respondents who held this view to cite their source. As Table 2.4 shows, almost two thirds of respondents who believed this cited the media as the source of their information 5 . Direct or indirect experience was cited by a much smaller percentage of the sample.

People over-estimate the proportion of crime for which young offenders are responsible In order to explore views about the proportion of crime that is committed by young people, the following question was put to the sample: ‘Of every 100 crimes recorded by the police, how many do you think are committed by young offenders?’. As with trends in youth crime, it is somewhat difficult to provide a definitive answer to this question. The proportion of known offenders under 18 is 12% (Home Office, 2002). A recent study of youth justice in London found that a fifth of known crime suspects 6 were young offenders. Whether there are differential detection rates for young and adult offenders is unclear. It is possible that young offenders are more likely than adult offenders to commit crimes without being detected – or at least to escape formal action. If this were the case, young offenders would be responsible for a somewhat higher proportion of recorded offences than suggested by the official statistics. Table 2.4: Source of perception that youth crime has increased (%) Respondents Media reports

64

Crimes committed against me or people I know

18

What other people say about youth crime

16

Personal observation/direct experience

9

Government statistics showing a rise in youth crime

5

Other sources

12

Notes: 1. Question: ‘What makes you think that the number of young offenders has increased?’. 2. Total exceeds 100% as multiple responses were allowed. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n =1,265.

5

6

It is interesting to note in this context that an American study of news media has shown that the volume of crime coverage in the news media does not reflect actual crime trends (cited in Dorfman and Schiraldi, 2001). Dale et al (2004). ‘Suspect’ is a category used by the Metropolitan Police to refer to all those who were investigated for recorded crimes; it includes those who were not eventually charged.

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On the other hand, it is equally or more likely that adult offenders would be better at avoiding detection than the less experienced and possibly more reckless young offenders. Adults may also be less likely to admit to offences that they have committed. Our ‘best guess’ at the right answer, based on the proportion of known offenders under 18, is that young offenders are responsible for somewhere between 10 and 20% of all recorded crime. It is possible (but in our view unlikely) that the figure may be slightly higher. For the purposes of this analysis we are assuming that the ‘correct’ answer falls under the 30% limit. As Table 2.5 shows, fewer than three in ten respondents (27%) provided estimates of 30% or less. A third (33%) offered estimates between 31% and 50% , and 42% placed the figure even higher. The average (median) estimate was 50% . Research in other jurisdictions demonstrates that the tendency to assume that young offenders account for a large percentage of all crimes committed is not restricted to the British public 7 (see Roberts, 2004). These findings are important because misperceptions about youth crime trends may well fuel concern about the seriousness of the crime problem 8 . After all, if Table 2.5: Perceptions of amount of crime committed by young offenders (%) Respondents 1-10%

4

11-20%

9

21-30%

14

31-40%

14

41-50%

18

51-60%

15

61-70%

12

71-80%

12

Higher

3

Total

100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Of every 100 crimes recorded by the police, how many do you think are committed by young offenders?’. 2. Total does not equal 100% due to rounding. 3. Shaded response categories are most likely to be accurate. 4. Weighted data, unweighted n =820.

For example, a survey in California found that most people believed that juveniles committed the majority of violent crimes in that state, when in fact they accounted for only 13% of arrests (cited in Roberts, 2004). 8 Alternatively, people who are particularly concerned about the youth crime problem may assume that youth crime rates have been increasing sharply. 7

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people believe that youth crime rates are constantly rising, this will define the youth crime problem as more serious than would be suggested by the statistical reality. This in turn may explain public demands for harsher sentencing, as many people subscribe to a straightforwardly deterrent or ‘hydraulic’ model of crime and punishment, according to which harsher penalties lead to lower crime rates.

Many people over-estimate the percentage of youth crime involving violence As with crime by adults, public apprehension about youth crime usually focuses on crimes of violence. This is true of the public in all Western nations for which we have systematic public opinion data (see Roberts, 2004). In this survey we explored public perceptions of the proportion of youth crime involving violence (or the threat of violence). A consistent finding in the literature with respect to adult offenders is that most people over-estimate the percentage of crime involving violence. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in Britain, Australia and Canada (see Roberts and Stalans, 1997, for a review)9 . For example, Hough and Roberts (1998) report that almost four out of five respondents to the 1996 BCS believed that 30% or more of crimes recorded by the police involved violence. In the present survey, half the sample was asked to estimate the proportion of adult crime involving violence, half was asked about young offenders. The results can be seen in Table 2.6. Thus over two thirds of the sample estimated the percentage of youth crime involving violence at over 40%; the equivalent figure for adult crime was 60% . The average estimates of the proportion of crime involving violence were very similar: 49% for young offenders and 50% for adult offenders. As with the questions that have already been discussed, there is no indisputable ‘right answer’. Around a fifth of crimes recorded by the police involve violence, including assaults without injury; similar proportions of adult and young offenders are cautioned or convicted for violent offences. Once again it seems clear that public perceptions are more pessimistic than is warranted in light of the official statistics.

Almost half the polled public thinks that there is more youth crime in Britain than other Western nations We asked the public to consider the problem of youth crime in an international context. Specifically, respondents were asked the following question: ‘Compared to other European countries like France or Germany, do you think there is more 9

The phenomenon is not restricted to Western industrialised nations. Nuttall et al (2003) report the findings from a survey of residents of Barbados, in which respondents significantly over-estimated the proportion of crimes involving violence.

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Table 2.6: Public estimates of the percentage of youth and adult crime involving violence (%) Youth crime

Adult crime

1-10%

7

6

11-20%

6

7

21-30%

11

12

31-40%

7

10

41-50%

28

24

51-60%

13

14

61-70%

11

10

71-80%

13

12

Higher

4

4

100

100

Total

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Of every 100 crimes recorded by the police that are committed by [young/adult] offenders, what number involves violence or the threat of violence?’. 2. Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding. 3. Shaded rows are consistent with our best guess – a fifth. 4. Weighted data, unweighted n =805 (for youth crime), 825 (adult crime).

or less crime by young offenders in Britain, or do you think it’s about the same?’. The responses are presented in Table 2.7. One quarter of the sample – very reasonably – expressed no opinion, the highest ‘no opinion’ rate of any question in the survey10 . As can be seen in Table 2.7, of those individuals who did respond, just under a third thought that there was about the same amount of crime in Britain. However, the answers of the remaining respondents showed a clear asymmetry: 42% of the sample believed that there was more crime here; only 3% felt that there was less crime in Britain. In the eyes of many people, therefore, the youth crime problem is worse in this country.

Most people over-estimate the proportion of young offenders who are reconvicted The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act created a statutory goal for the entire youth justice system in England and Wales. According to Section 37: ‘It shall be the principal aim of the youth justice system to prevent offending by children and young persons’. In light of this, reconviction rates are of critical interest. In addition, as will be seen later in this report, the public sees deterrence as the most important goal of sentencing young offenders. Accordingly, to the extent that they are aware of recidivism rates, the public may well use these statistics to judge whether the

10

To our knowledge there are no reliable cross-European statistics on this.

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Table 2.7: Perceptions of youth crime in Britain compared to other European nations (%) Respondents More crime by young people in Britain than other countries

42

About the same amount of crime by young people in Britain as other countries

31

Less crime by young people in Britain than other countries

3

Don’t know

25

Total

100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Compared to other European countries like France or Germany, do you think there is more or less crime by young offenders in Britain, or do you think it’s about the same?’. 2. Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n=1,690.

sentencing process is ‘working’. People who believe that juvenile re-offending rates are high are unlikely to hold positive views of the youth courts. Recent Home Office statistics 11 show that of all first-time young offenders for a cohort of 2000, 19% were reconvicted within a year. Adult recidivism rates are comparable. Respondents were asked to estimate the proportion of first time offenders who would be reconvicted of another offence within a year. Once again the sample was divided in two, with half the respondents being asked about young offenders, the other half asked about adult offenders. Their responses can be seen in Table 2.8. Both sub-samples tended to over-estimate the reconviction rates by a substantial margin. This result is consistent with findings from surveys in other jurisdictions, such as Spain and Canada (for example, Doob and Roberts, 1988; Roberts, 1988; Redondo et al, 1995; Doob et al, 1998). Comparison of the average estimates of reconviction rates reveal that the public has a more pessimistic perception of young offenders in this regard than adult offenders: the average estimate of the group asked about young offenders was 55% , compared to an average estimate of 48% by the group questioned about adult offenders. In this regard they are correct, in that juvenile reconviction rates are indeed higher. Of course these data do not tell us about public expectations of the seriousness of re-offending by the two age categories; it is possible that people expect adults to commit more serious offences in the event of reconviction.

11

These statistics relate to offenders who had been convicted of an offence. The reoffending rates for young people cautioned by the police are even more positive: statistics from NACRO show that almost 90% of such youth stayed out of trouble for the next two years (NACRO, 2003).

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Table 2.8: Public estimates of reconviction rates of young and adult offenders (%) Youth

Adults

1-20%

9

2

21-40%

19

25

41-60%

37

41

61-80%

28

19

81-100% Total

7

3

100

100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Of every 100 young/adult offenders convicted for the first time, how many do you think will be convicted of another offence within a year?’. 2. Respondents in shaded rows gave reasonably accurate estimates. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n =829 (young offenders), 805 (adult offenders).

Most people see youth today as less respectful than previous generations Respondents were asked whether they believed that compared to their counterparts of 20 years ago, teenagers today were more or less respectful of authority. Bringing empirical evidence to bear on this – very general – question is hard. Some might argue that youth in the ‘punk era’ of the early 1980s were less respectful of legal, political and moral authority than young people today. Wherever the truth lies, few of our respondents adopted this perspective. As Table 2.9 shows, more than four out of five respondents (85%) held the view that teenagers today are less respectful of authority than their predecessors. One in ten (11%) believed that the two generations were equally respectful of authority; only 1% felt that teenagers today are more respectful. If we exclude the 4% of the sample who classified themselves as being too young to express an opinion or held no opinion on the issue, the percentage of respondents holding the view that teenagers today are less respectful rises to 88% . Direct experience with teenagers over the years does not seem to explain this opinion. Respondents aged 16 to 2912 were just as likely as older people to hold the view that teenagers today are less respectful. As one might expect, the belief in declining respect correlated with the belief that youth crime was rising. Clearly then, the public holds a generally negative view of British youth today.

12

Although most respondents in this age group were toddlers or unborn in 1983, only 7% of them chose ‘don’t know’ or ‘too young to express an opinion’. One wonders whether their responses percentage would have been any different if they had been asked to compare today’s teenagers to teenagers in, say, Roman Britain!

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Table 2.9: Perceptions of teenagers today, compared to 20 years ago, by age of respondent (%) Teenagers today are…

Aged 16-29

Aged 30-59

Aged 60+

Total

More respectful

–

1

1

1

About the same

9

12

9

11

Less respectful

84

84

88

84

7

3

2

4

100

100

100

100

Don’t know/too young to say Total

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Compared to teenagers of, say 20 years ago, would you say that teenagers today are ... more respectful of authority than teenagers of 20 years ago, less respectful or about the same?’. 2. Weighed data, unweighted n =840.

The perception that youth today behave worse than their predecessors is not restricted to the British public. People around the world seem to look backward to better times, when young people were more respectful. When Canadians were recently asked to react to the statement, ‘Kids today are no worse than they used to be’, a higher percentage disagreed than agreed. Moreover, over three quarters of the sample agreed with the statement that ‘Youth crime is worse than it was when I was young’ (Earnscliffe Research and Communications, 2000). This perception has been around for a while: in 1993, almost two thirds of the public expressed the view that the behaviour of young people had become worse (Roberts, 1994). Similarly, over three quarters of Americans surveyed in 1996 held the view that a breakdown in the family in recent years had led to ‘low moral and personal character’ and two thirds believed that family life has deteriorated since they were children (Public Management, 1997)13 .

Summary This chapter has examined public knowledge of various aspects of crime by young offenders. Although youth crime did not emerge as a particularly salient social issue, most members of the public held pessimistic views on the topic. Three quarters of the population thought that youth crime was rising, when there was little evidence for this. They cited the media as the main source of information that led them to this belief. Most respondents over-estimated the proportion of youth crime that involves violence, and generally believed that young offenders commit a large 13

These negative perceptions of young people, combined with the perception that youth crime rates have been rising, may explain why people are quite pessimistic about future trends in juvenile crime. A survey of US respondents conducted in 2002 found that half the sample expected the number of crimes by juveniles to rise during the next five years; only 7% expected a decline (Center for Opinion Research, 2002).

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minority – or indeed the majority – of recorded crime in this country. They thought that youth crime was more of a problem here than in other Western countries and believed that respect for authority was waning. We recognise that information about youth crime trends is far from definitive. There is much room for interpretation of the statistical evidence. In addition, it is unreasonable to expect members of the public to have the ‘correct’ answer to many of these questions. Nevertheless, the general pattern of responses suggests that public opinion is not just misinformed; most people hold views that consistently err in a direction that suggests the youth crime problem is worse than systematic statistics suggest. This is a problem for two reasons. First, youth justice operates – for better or for worse – within a climate of public opinion that shapes the options available to youth courts and others involved in the youth justice system14 . Second, inaccurate knowledge about youth crime is likely to inform public attitudes to young offenders, and guide public preferences with respect to the criminal justice response. These attitudes and opinions are the subject of the next chapter.

14

The Audit Commission (2004) report includes some tentative evidence to suggest that European sentencers are much less sensitive to the pressures of public (or media) opinion.

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3

The youth justice system

T

he next section of the module was intended to assess what people knew of youth justice, how they thought it should work, and how well they thought it actually operated. To start with, the sample was divided into two: half were asked about the best way of reducing youth crime, and half about reducing adult offending. Respondents were asked to consider a number of different crime reduction strategies1, and to select the one that represented ‘the best way to reduce crime’. Previous surveys that have addressed this issue have failed to distinguish between young and adult offending. When respondents are simply asked how to prevent crime, criminal justice options often head the list of strategies. For example, an Observer survey conducted in 2003 found that ‘more police’ and ‘harsher sentencing’ were the most popular public choices regarding crime prevention in general, together accounting for 57% of responses 2 (Observer, 2003).

People favour different crime reduction strategies for youth and adults The importance of distinguishing between young and adult offending emerges from responses to questions posed on our survey. Table 3.1 shows that people think that quite different strategies are needed for tackling youth and adult offending, although there were also some important commonalities. For young offenders, ‘more discipline in schools’ was by far the most popular crime prevention strategy, endorsed by 42% of the sample. Tougher sentences and more police were the next most popular options, although they attracted significantly less support from the public. The public appears to recognise clear limitations on the capacity of the criminal justice system to prevent crime by young offenders. Taken together, the policing and the courts options still fall significantly short of the 41% of the sample who The response options provided to the two groups were necessarily slightly different (see Table 3.1). However, the number of options was the same and most options were common to both adult and young offender versions of the question. 2 To a large degree, the level of support for any particular crime prevention initiative will depend on the number and nature of alternatives offered to respondents. The 2003 Observer poll included six alternatives, but some (for example, ‘eradicating poverty’) could be considered rather impractical; this may explain the higher level of support for criminal justice crime prevention strategies in that survey. 1

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Table 3.1: Public perceptions of the best way to reduce crime by young and adult offenders (%) Young offenders

Adult offenders

More discipline in schools

42

Not asked

Tougher sentences

17

31

More police officers on streets

15

25

More employment opportunities for young people

8

Not asked

na

7

More support for parents

7

na

More funding for schools and after-school programmes

6

na

Treatment for drug, alcohol and mental health problems

4

14

More funding for job-training programmes for adults

More jobs

na

8

2

4

More support to help offenders become law-abiding citizens

Not asked

11

Higher levels of social security payments

Not asked

1

>1

1

1

Good

12

10

13

1

Fair

36

36

36

42

Poor

33

33

28

28

Very poor

11

11

9

8

Don’t know

7

9

13

12

100

100

100

100

Total

2001/02 BCS

2003 ONS

Notes: 1. Question: ‘How good a job do you think the youth courts are doing?’. 2. Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding.

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Table 3.6: Public ratings of youth courts in the UK and US (%) Britain (ONS, 2003) Excellent

US (1999)

1

6

Good

12

29

Fair

52

36

Poor

35

29

Total

100

100

Notes: 1. Question: ‘How good a job do you think the youth courts are doing?’. 2. ‘Don’t knows’ excluded in both surveys. Thus ONS figures differ from Table 3.5. 3. Weighted ONS data, unweighted n =1,339. US Source: Office of the Administrator for the Courts (1999)

say that the way that the police and the courts deal with young offenders, that is people aged 10 to 17, is too tough, too lenient or about right?’. As can be seen, the perception of leniency – first documented in the 1998 BCS – still exists. There does appear to have been some improvement in perceptions of youth court sentencing, however. The percentage of respondents viewing the youth justice system as ‘much too lenient’ has declined from 39% to 25% , although almost three quarters of the sample still hold the view that the system is too lenient. Responses to this question appear to be quite volatile over time, and it seems likely that the peaks of dissatisfaction may reflect cases that hit the press around the time of fieldwork. It is important to see these negative perceptions of youth courts in some perspective. As Table 3.8 shows, Canadians also share the perception of leniency Table 3.7: Perceptions of leniency/severity of youth justice system (%) 1998 BCS

2000 BCS

2001/02 BCS

2003 ONS

Much too lenient

39

30

36

25

A little too lenient

35

33

34

46

About right

22

22

22

20

A little too tough

1

2

2

2

Much too tough

1

1

1

1

Don’t know/no opinion

2

4

6

5

100

100

100

100

Total

Notes: 1. Question: ‘In general, would you say that the way the police and courts deal with young offenders, that is people aged 10 to 17, is too tough, too lenient or about right?’. 2. Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding. 3. Weighted data, unweighted n =1,339 (ONS); 7,240 (01/02 BCS); 9,663 (2000 BCS).

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Table 3.8: Perceptions of youth court sentencing: Canada versus England and Wales (%) Too lenient

About right

Too harsh

England and Wales (2003)

71

20

3

Canada (2000)

77

22

1

Source for Canada: Earnscliff Research and Communications (2000)

in youth court sentencing. Indeed the patterns of response are remarkably similar, with approximately three quarters of the public subscribing to a perception of leniency. Is this view of sentence severity based on knowledge of the sentences imposed? Are people in Britain critical of youth courts because sentences imposed on young offenders are particularly lenient in this country? We think not. Data from other jurisdictions shows that people tend to respond this way regardless of the nature of sentences imposed. For example, Canada’s youth court system has been faulted for the excessive use of custody (see Doob and Cesaroni, 2003); indeed one of the principal goals of the 2002 youth justice reforms in that country was to reduce the use of custody in youth courts. And yet as noted, the public in that country still feels that the youth courts are too lenient. Against this, however, it could be argued that the slightly less negative views of the US public (see Table 3.6) reflect tougher juvenile sentencing policy there. If making sentencing tougher increased public confidence in the administration of youth justice, Americans would be the most satisfied group of all. Throughout the 1990s, juvenile justice systems across the US became more punitive. More juveniles were transferred to adult courts by means of amendments to legislative transfer provisions, and sentences for young offenders in juvenile courts became harsher. It is worth recalling that in the US, juveniles are still at risk of capital punishment; several offenders who were juveniles when they committed their crimes have been executed. Even if their dissatisfaction is more muted, Americans nevertheless share the disenchantment with youth courts expressed by citizens of other nations. The conclusion we draw is that public criticism of the youth (or adult) court system is largely unrelated to the actual severity of the courts.

Perceptions of leniency linked to evaluations of youth courts Table 3.9 reveals the clear link between evaluations of the youth justice system and perceptions of the appropriateness of sentencing. Respondents who rated the courts and the police as doing a poor or very poor job were significantly more likely to regard sentences as being too lenient. Thus 92% of this group, but only 44% of respondents who gave the most positive ratings, believed that courts were too lenient.

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Table 3.9: Relationship between ratings of youth courts and perceptions of leniency (%) Too harsh

About right

Too lenient

Excellent/good

4

51

44

Fair

3

24

73

Poor/very poor

3

6

92

Table 3.10: Relationship between perceptions of youth crime trends and ratings of youth justice (%) Youth crime increased

Stayed same/decreased

Excellent/good

11

15

Fair

45

55

Poor/very poor

44

30

100

100

Total

Table 3.10 reveals a similar relationship 5 between perceptions of youth crime trends and ratings of youth justice: respondents who believed that youth crime rates had been increasing were more likely to rate the justice system as doing a poor job. This table underlines the importance of ensuring that the public has an accurate view of actual youth crime trends.

Summary This chapter has summarised people’s knowledge of, and views about, the youth justice system. It is clear that people did not expect to find solutions to youth crime primarily in the criminal justice system. They placed less emphasis on the need for achieving proportional sentences in the youth court than in the adult courts, and greater emphasis on prevention and rehabilitation. One of the most visible recent reforms to the youth justice system appears to have passed largely unnoticed. Only small minorities rated the work of the youth courts as good, and seven out of 10 people believed that the system was too lenient. The view that the system performs badly is associated with the beliefs that youth crime is rising and the youth courts are too soft.

5

The finding is of course correlational: we do not know whether perceptions of high crime rates determine ratings of the courts, or whether people who rate the courts negatively assume that crime rates are also high.

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4

Sentencing preferences in specific cases

W

e have documented widespread public dissatisfaction about the sentencing of young offenders. Barely one in 10 people thought that the youth justice system was doing a good job, and seven out of 10 thought that sentences were too lenient. It should be remembered that in answering questions of this kind, respondents were invited to generalise. They were neither expected nor required to answer questions about sentencers’ competence by reference to specific cases or individual sentencing decisions. The final set of questions in our module asked respondents about sentencing in specific cases. For the most part, they were presented with brief scenarios providing details about a crime and an offender, and they were asked to ‘impose sentence’. In some cases they were presented with a scenario that included the sentence, and were asked about the acceptability of alternatives. Where research is trying to assess whether sentencing practice is in step with public opinion, this ‘specific case’ approach is much better than asking respondents general questions about the severity of the courts. General questions can reveal public cynicism or disenchantment, but they are a poor test of whether sentencers are actually ‘getting it wrong’ in the eyes of the public. This is for the – fairly obvious – reason that most people are likely to be poorly informed about the realities of sentencing practice. This is particularly true for youth justice, where run-of-the-mill sentencing decisions are reported in detail in the media even more rarely than in the adult courts. The consequence of this low level of public knowledge about court practice is that people answer general questions about sentencing with stereotypical cases in mind. Attitudes are likely to be grounded in vague recollections of well-publicised – and probably notorious – cases. The Audit Commission report (2004, p 49) conducted a media analysis that showed that the most frequent stories about punishment of youth crime related to lenient – or supposedly lenient – sentencing. Certainly it has been shown that in answering the general questions carried by polls on this topic, people think of the worst kinds of crimes committed by the offenders with the worst records. For example, Doob and Roberts (1988) asked respondents what profile of offender they had in mind when answering a question about sentence severity along the lines of that reported in Table 3.71 . Almost two thirds of 1

Having been asked their opinion about sentences in general, respondents were asked ‘What type of offender were you thinking of when you asked this last question’ (Doob and Roberts, 1988, p 117).

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respondents who thought sentences in general were too lenient had been thinking of violent or repeat offenders – quite possibly reflecting the media attention given to such offenders. The result is that people appear to be far more punitive when answering a question about ‘sentencing in general’, than when they are asked to impose a sentence in a specific case. This finding has been demonstrated by numerous researchers (for example, Zamble and Kalm, 1990). Even when the offence is specified – burglary, say – the problem of public misperception remains. The image that comes to most people’s minds involves the most serious kind of burglar: an experienced professional who is ‘tooled up’ and dangerous. Systematic research has shown the majority of offenders sentenced by the courts do not conform to the stereotype in the mind of the public (see Stalans and Diamond, 1990). To reduce this problem of stereotyping, our vignettes generally provided information on age and criminal history as well as the offence of conviction, and sometimes provided fuller information.

Sentencing preferences and expectations of sentencing practices The first set of ‘specific’ questions was designed to explore the gap between people’s expectations of sentencing practices and their sentencing preferences. Respondents were presented with a case involving a young offender, and were then required to answer two questions. First, they were given a list of possible sentences and asked to state the sentence that this young offender would be likely to receive. Then, having been provided with the same list of sentences, they were asked to select the sentence that they thought he should receive. The sample was divided into three, each group being asked to consider a different case. The three cases were selected to include different crimes as well as a range of seriousness: Version A: A 16-year-old has been convicted of burglary and has stolen £250 worth of property. He has no previous convictions. Version B: A 16-year-old has been convicted of selling cannabis near his school. He has previous convictions for possession of drugs and assault. Version C: A 16-year-old has been convicted of assault. He has two previous convictions for assault and selling stolen property. Although multiple sentences are permitted in youth courts, in order to keep the question easily comprehensible, respondents were asked to select a single sentence from the following list. Some of the sanctions represent simplified versions of those actually available in youth court:

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• • • • •

a fine; community service (unpaid work); a period of community supervision by a probation officer or social worker; a curfew order with tagging; a period of detention in a prison for young offenders followed by a period of community supervision.

Table 4.1 reveals that there is a considerable gap between the sentences people want to see imposed and the ones they expect will be imposed on young offenders. For all three scenarios, there is a significant difference between the sentence that respondents expected the offender to receive, and the sentence that they believed he should receive. In general, the ‘expected’ sentence was much more lenient than the ‘favoured’ sentence. This point can be clearly seen in the responses regarding detention. Table 4.1: Public sentencing preferences, three 16-year-old offenders (%) Burglary: No previous convictions Young Young offender offender would should get get

Assault: Two previous convictions Young Young offender offender would should get get

Selling cannabis: previous convictions Young Young offender offender would should get get

Community service

44

20

25

7

27

10

Fine

16

4

5

1

8

1

Community supervision plus probation

26

32

31

13

31

18

Curfew with tagging

4

13

9

14

11

14

Detention followed by community supervision

4

26

28

62

21

53

Don’t know

4

2

1

1

2

1

Notes: 1. Questions: (A) ‘Choosing your answer from this card, what sentence do you think he is likely to receive?’; (B) ‘Choosing your answer from this card, what sentence do you think he should receive?’. 2. Pecentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding. 3. ‘Other’ responses excluded. 4. Weighted ONS data, unweighted n =559 (burglary); 558 (assault); 566 (cannabis).

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For all three offenders, respondents favoured the use of custody at a much higher rate than they thought would be imposed. Thus, only 4% of the respondents who sentenced the burglary case expected the offender to receive a sentence of detention; however, over one quarter of this group favoured imposition of a term of custody. Similarly, only 28% of the assault group expected the offender to be imprisoned, but almost two thirds (62%) favoured custody as a sentencing option. Finally, for the young offender convicted of drug dealing, 21% of respondents expected him to be imprisoned, while 53% wanted to see him imprisoned. This finding is consistent with previous research on attitudes to the sentencing of adults: Hough (1998) reports that the most common response from respondents in the 1992 BCS sentencing module was that the courts would deal less severely with the offender than they desired. Finally, it should be recalled that respondents were allowed to choose only a single sentence. Had they been free to impose multiple dispositions, and to combine sentences, it is likely that support for imprisonment, particularly for case ‘A’ would have been lower, as some of the respondents who chose custody would instead have opted for a combination of different sanctions.

Restorative sentencing and young offenders An important goal of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act in England and Wales was to promote the use of restorative responses to juvenile offending (Dignan, 2000; Crawford and Newburn, 2003). Indeed, restorative justice has had a great impact on the youth justice systems of many Western nations, especially New Zealand and Australia (see Morris and Maxwell, 2001). At the sentencing stage of the criminal process, restorative justice attempts to promote the interests of the victim by encouraging the offender to issue an apology, and if possible, to make reparation. In this survey we explored the impact that such restorative gestures may have on public responses to the sentencing of young offenders. Does it make a difference to the public if the young offender has taken, or intends to take, some restorative steps to repair the harm inflicted? Once again three scenarios were created, although the offence was the same in all three versions (see Box 4.1 for a description of the three versions). In version A, respondents were simply provided with a description of a case involving a young offender. Version B contained some social history information to flesh out the description of the individual. This information includes what might be termed mitigating factors (for example, the offender recently lost his job), as well as aggravating ones (for example, he has been playing truant from school and has been warned by the police). This balance was sought because we did not wish to simply make the offender more sympathetic to respondents, which would have obviously have resulted in more lenient sentencing recommendations.

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Box 4.1: Scenarios used in reparative sentencing question Version A (offence alone) A young offender aged 17 has admitted to breaking into someone’s home and stealing property worth £500. Version B (offence plus description of offender’s circumstances) A young offender has admitted to breaking into someone’s home and stealing property worth £500. John is 17 years old. He lives at home with his parents and two brothers. His father has been unemployed for the past 18 months. John has been repeatedly missing school. Although he has not appeared before a youth court before, he has been warned by the police in the past. John says that he stole the property because he wanted the money, having just lost his part-time job at the local supermarket. Version C (with reparation) A young offender has admitted to breaking into someone’s home and stealing property worth 500 pounds. John is 17 years old. He lives at home with his parents and two brothers. His father has been unemployed for the past 18 months. John has been repeatedly missing school. Although he has not appeared before a youth court before, he has been warned by the police in the past. John says that he stole the property because he wanted the money, having just lost his part-time job at the local supermarket. John has expressed remorse for having committed the crime. In addition, he has written a letter of apology to the victims, and has promised to pay them back over the next three months.

Version C can be considered the experimental condition; it contained all of the information contained in the second version. However, now the respondents were also informed that the offender was described as having taken a number of steps that may be described as ‘restorative’, including expressing remorse, accepting responsibility, and indicating a clear intention to make reparation to the victim of the crime.Box 4:1: Scenarios used in reparative sentencing question

Support for imprisoning young offender falls when restorative gestures made Table 4.2 shows that the inclusion of information that the young offender had undertaken some steps towards reparation had a powerful effect on public sentencing preferences. When the offender takes restorative steps, public support for imposing custody declines. One third of respondents in the ‘offence only’ condition (version A) favoured imposing a term of custody; this fell to 13% in the group who had read about the restorative steps taken by the offender.

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Table 4.2: Public sentencing preferences, cases with and without restorative steps (%)

Version A: Offence only

B: Offence plus case history information

C: Offence plus case history information and restoration

4

2

3

Community service

20

23

25

Community supervision

29

43

48

Curfew plus tagging

14

11

10

Detention followed by community supervision

33

21

13

100

100

100

Fine

Total

Notes: 1. Question: ‘Which of the following sentences is most appropriate in this case?’. 2. Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding. 3. Weighted ONS data, unweighted n =550 (Scenario A); 555 (Scenario B); 545 (Scenario C).

The level of support for incarceration in the ‘social history’ condition fell between the other two conditions, at 21% . This finding suggests that some, but by no means all, of the mitigating effect of restorative steps is attributable to the impact of simply hearing a little more about the offender. When people know nothing more about the case than simply the offence of conviction, they tend to be quite punitive. It is clearly easier to be punitive towards abstract ‘offenders’ rather than specific individuals. Doob et al (1998) provide data to explain this finding: when members of the public are given no details about the offender, he is seen “as more dangerous, less mature, less employable and more likely to re-offend than a young offender described in any of four different ways” (p 39). Also, when people have little or no information about the offender to consider, they naturally focus on the seriousness of the crime. Since this offence is very serious, considering the crime in the absence of any other information results in stronger support for the most severe sanction. If public support for imprisonment declined when the offender made restoration, which other sanctions increased in popularity? As can be seen in Table 4.2, public support for community supervision was much higher in the condition in which restoration was made: 48% of respondents favoured this option compared to 29% in the condition containing little information and 43% in the condition with social history information alone. The impact of the inclusion of restorative gestures on preferences in our scenarios is all the more striking when one considers how mild these steps were. The young offender had not actually paid back the victim, but merely signalled his intention to do so. A small (but important) gesture of good faith nevertheless had an important impact on public sentencing preferences. This experiment therefore represents

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a conservative test of the power of restoration to mitigate the public desire for punishment.

Acceptability of substitute sanctions Two pairs of questions explored public reaction to alternative sanctions. Several findings from the international literature on public opinion gave rise to the hypothesis being tested in this component of the research. First, when most people think about sentencing or are asked to choose a sentence for a specific case, their thoughts tend first towards imprisonment. Many people consider how long a prison sentence should be in light of the case characteristics, rather than whether imprisonment is even necessary. Making alternative sanctions salient to people may well diminish support for custody as a sanction simply by making the respondent aware of other possible dispositions. Second, previous research has demonstrated that when people are asked whether a non-custodial sanction would be an appropriate substitute for imprisonment, large numbers of subjects respond affirmatively. For example, Doob et al (1998) report that about three quarters of respondents asked to consider sentencing a young offender found a community service order to be an acceptable substitute for imprisoning the young person. We explored this notion of ‘substitute sanctions’ in our research.

Experiment One: ‘John’ We begin by returning to the three versions of the case involving the offender referred to as John (see Box 4.1). It will be recalled that ‘John’ was 17, had no previous convictions and had been convicted of burglary, with losses of £500. The level of respondents’ support for custody varied significantly, depending on the presence of social history information, and information about the offender’s restorative steps. In order to explore the acceptability of alternate sanctions, all respondents who had chosen imprisonment in response to this question (regardless of experimental condition) were asked the following supplementary question: ‘If the magistrate sentenced the young offender to one year of supervision by a probation officer or social worker, ordered him to do 200 hours of unpaid work for the community and to compensate the victims for their lost property, would you find that acceptable as a punishment instead of prison?’ Since the manipulation of information (in versions A-C) is not relevant to the question of whether a substitute sanction would be acceptable, for ease of presentation of the findings, we have collapsed responses across the three conditions.

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In response to this supplementary question, four fifths of the respondents who had initially endorsed imprisonment as a sentence now stated that they would find the non-custodial alternative sentence acceptable. This finding demonstrates conclusively the attraction of alternative sanctions to the public, when these alternatives are made clear to the respondent.

Experiment Two: ‘Henry’ Using these two vignettes, we tried to probe the limits of public toleration of community sanctions. We divided the sample in half, with respondents being assigned to read about one of two new young offender cases (see Box 4.2). The first involved an offender with one previous court appearance who was convicted of a £300 theft. The second was more serious in terms of both the offence – robbery – and criminal history (the offender was described as having three previous convictions for serious offences). This combination of a serious offence of conviction and a repeat offender would undoubtedly have attracted a custodial sentence 2 . Respondents were told that the magistrates were considering imposing a term of custody followed by community supervision. They were asked whether they would find it acceptable if the magistrates imposed instead an alternative sanction. The alternative sanction consisted of a number of elements, including some restorative gestures.

Public find alternative sanctions to constitute acceptable alternative to prison The alternative sanctions were constructed to be plausible dispositions, ones that might well be considered by magistrates as an acceptable alternative to imprisonment. As it happens, the public too, found them to be acceptable. For the young offender who stole CDs over a protracted period of time, and who had a previous conviction for theft, 79% of respondents found the alternative sentence acceptable. For the other case, just over half the group (52%) found the alternative acceptable. These findings support two propositions: first, for certain cases, public support for imprisonment is not that strong (or respondents would not have found the alternative acceptable); second, alternative sanctions are seen as a plausible replacement for prison. Even though the second case would be covered by Court of Appeal guidelines that propose a significant custodial sentence, more than half of the public found the alternative sentence acceptable. Moreover, had the community alternative 2

The Lord Chief Justice issued guidance in 2002 to the effect that an 18-month custodial sentence was the minimum appropriate sentence in robberies involving mobile phones; longer sentences were needed for older offenders, or those with previous convictions or those who had used violence (Attorney General’s Reference Nos 4 and 7 of 2002).

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Box 4.2: Case histories used to test public acceptance of alternatives to imprisonment Case history A Henry is 16 years old and has been convicted of stealing CDs worth about £300 pounds over a two-week period from a local shop. This is the second time that he has been before the courts for stealing. The magistrates are considering sending this young offender to a prison for young offenders, followed by a period of supervision by a probation officer or social worker in the community. Would you find it acceptable if the magistrates imposed the following sentence instead of sending the young offender to prison: the young offender would be supervised in the community for three months by a probation officer or social worker. In addition, he would have to write a formal apology to the victim; pay back the money and perform 100 hours of community service? Case history B Henry is 16 years old and has been convicted of robbery. He punched another 16-year-old several times in the face, and stole his mobile phone. He has three previous convictions, for assault, theft and robbery. The magistrates are considering sending this young offender to a prison for young offenders for 60 days, followed by a term of supervision by a probation officer or social worker in the community. Would you find it acceptable if the magistrates imposed the following sentence instead of sending the young offender to prison: the young offender would be supervised in the community for three months by a probation officer or social worker. In addition, he would have to write a formal apology to the victim, pay back the money and perform 100 hours of community service?

been more severe – perhaps by a longer period of community supervision – it would undoubtedly have attracted even more support from the respondents in this survey. This support for community disposals in serious cases stands in sharp contradiction to the common belief (held by three quarters of the population), that the youth justice system is too lenient. It also further underlines the importance of providing the public with more than a general question to answer.

Testing the ‘substitute sanction’ hypothesis in other jurisdictions It is worth emphasising that the percentage of respondents who found the alternative sanction to be an acceptable replacement for prison is significantly

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higher than that found in comparable tests in other countries. For example, in Canada, respondents to a recent national poll who had favoured imprisoning a young offender described in a case scenario were also provided with an alternative sanction and asked whether it would be an acceptable replacement. Approximately half of the group did find the alternative acceptable, a much lower percentage than in the study we report here, even though the alternative sentence put to Canadian respondents was actually more severe: the sentence was four times longer, and the offender had to complete twice as many hours of community work (see Tufts and Roberts, 2002). Table 4.3 summarises findings from 12 empirical tests of the ‘substitute sanction’ hypothesis, drawn from three independent representative samples of the public. These findings all involve crimes by young offenders, although as noted, the phenomenon has been demonstrated for surveys exploring responses to adult offending as well. As can be seen in Table 4.3, significant proportions of the samples find the substitute sanction acceptable. Since the finding emerges across a wide range of offences, we can have confidence that it demonstrates a significant degree of public acceptance of community-based alternatives to imprisonment for juvenile offenders.

Leading questions? A sceptical reader may take the position that these trends reflect social desirability or demand characteristics effects. That is, respondents may have felt that the socially acceptable response was to agree to the alternate sanction. Or, they may have divined the experimental hypothesis and responded in the way that they believed the researcher wanted them to respond. We cannot completely eliminate these alternative explanations. However, the significant percentage of respondents who rejected the alternative sanction, as well as the variable acceptance rates within a study, militate against the social desirability interpretation. After all, if 79% of the respondents in our survey felt that the socially desirable response was to accept the substitute sanction, why was the acceptance rate so much lower for the other scenario? In our view, the difference between conditions must reflect respondents’ reactions to the acceptability of the sanction, not the social desirability of any particular response.

Perceptions of restorative sentences The next question permitted a test of an often-heard critique of restorative justice, namely, that it is (or is perceived by the public to be) a lenient response to offending (see Roberts and Stalans, 2004, for discussion of public opinion and restorative sentencing). This question permits comparison for the same offence/offender combination, of a conventional custody/community supervision sentence and a

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Table 4.3: Tests of substitute sanction hypothesis, three independent studies % of respondents accepting substitute sentence

Study

Offence

Substitute sentence

Britain, 2004 (this report)

Theft, one previous conviction

Community supervision; apologise; pay back money

79

Robbery, three priors

Community supervision; apologise; pay back money

52

Assault, no priors

1 year probation and 200 hours CSO

47

Assault, previous conviction

1 year probation and 200 hours CSO

49

Burglary, no priors

1 year probation and 200 hours CSO

46

Burglary, previous conviction

1 year probation and 200 hours CSO

47

Theft, unspecified record

Fine

61

Theft, unspecified record

Up to 240 hours CSO

85

Assault

Fine, unspecified

25

Assault

Up to 240 hours CSO

78

Minor sexual assault

Fine

44

Minor sexual assault

Up to 240 hours CSO

76

Canada, 1999 (Tufts and Roberts, 2002)

Canada, 1997 (Doob et al, 1998)

Note: CSO = Community Service Order.

‘restorative’ combination of measures. For this question, the sample was divided in half. The scenario – a 17-year-old offender convicted of burglary – was common to both conditions. The groups differed only in the sentences that were imposed. Respondents in one condition were told that: ‘Magistrates have imposed a brief term of custody in a prison for young offenders followed by a period of six months’ community supervision’. In the other condition, respondents were told the following: ‘The offender admits to the crime and has accepted responsibility for his actions. He has written a letter of apology to the owner of the house, and has agreed to pay the money back over the next three months. In addition, he has agreed to perform 200 hours community work for a local charity’.

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Table 4.4: Perceptions of appropriateness of custody versus restorative sanction, 17-year-old offender (%) This sentence was:

Custodial disposition

Restorative disposition

Much too tough

2