Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Act 2022

Part 8: Youth justice

Section 157: Youth remand

1. Section 157 amends the provisions of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 ("the 2012 Act"), which provide the legislative framework governing bail hearings and the tests courts must satisfy to remand a child or young person (i.e. aged under 18) to Youth Detention accommodation. The relevant sections are sections 91, 98, 99 and 102 and equivalent provisions for extradition proceedings under sections 100 and 101.
2. Subsection (2) amends section 91 of the 2012 Act to introduce a statutory duty for the court to consider the welfare and best interests of the child when applying the sets of conditions that must be met in order to remand a child to custody. This reflects the welfare principle set out in section 44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and promotes a ‘child first’ approach to decision-making.
3. Subsection (3) amends section 98 of the 2012 Act, the ‘first set of conditions’ so that when assessing whether the likelihood that the alleged offence would result in a custodial sentence, the court must be of the opinion that the prospect of custody is ‘very likely’. This will ensure that the mere possibility of a custodial sentence is not enough to warrant secure remand.
4. Subsection (3) also adds the sentencing condition to the first set of conditions under section 98 of the 2012 Act, where it only applies to section 99 under current provisions.
5. Subsections (3)(c) and (4)(d) amend the "necessity condition" which must be satisfied under both section 98 and 99 of the 2012 Act. The necessity condition is intended to ensure that, where the other conditions are satisfied, a child can only be remanded to custody in order to protect the public from death or serious harm or prevent the commission of an imprisonable offence. These sections introduce an additional consideration, which is that for the necessity condition to be satisfied, the court must be of the opinion that no alternative is available to manage the risk posed by the child safely in the community.
6. Subsection (4) amends the "history condition" so that only a recent and significant history of breaching bail, or offending while on bail, should justify custodial remand.
7. Subsections (5) and (6) make the corresponding amendments to sections 100 and 101 which provide the first and second set of conditions for extradition proceedings.
8. Subsection (7) amends section 102 (remands to youth detention accommodation) to introduce a duty for the court to provide the reasons for the decision to remand the child to Youth Detention Accommodation and to require the court to state that they have considered the welfare of the child and remand to local authority accommodation in making their decision.

Section 158: Discretion as to length of term

1. This section amends section 236 of the Code to remove the fixed lengths of the DTO and prescribe that any length of DTO can be given which is at least 4 months and no longer than 24 months.

Section 159: Consecutive detention and training and sentence of detention: effect of early release decision

1. This section amends the Code and the CJA 2003. It makes amendments to fix an existing discrepancy in relation to early release which meant that different lengths of early release were available for offenders sentenced to a DTO and another sentence consecutively, depending on the order in which they received those sentences. The amendments make it so that where an offender is serving a DTO and another sentence consecutively, the offender is able to benefit from the same amount of early release regardless of the order in which the sentences are given.

Section 160 and Schedule 16: Detention and training orders: time to count as served

1. Section 160 introduces Schedule 16 which makes amendments to ensure that time on remand or bail (subject to a qualifying curfew condition and an electronic monitoring condition) is counted as time served.
2. Schedule 16 amends sections 240ZA and 240A of the CJA 2003 so that time spent on remand or qualifying bail is counted as time served and credited against the custodial part of the DTO.
3. It amends section 240ZA so out that where an offender is given two or more sentences (one of which being a DTO), those sentences are to be treated as a single term for the purposes of crediting days spent in custody or on qualifying bail.
4. It amends the Code to remove the distinct approach for DTOs in sections 239 and 240 where time on remand and bail was taken into account when determining the term of the DTO.
5. Schedule 16 also amends the Armed Forces Act 2006 to preserve the current provisions for the consideration of remand so where a DTO is made under the Armed Forces Act 2006, time spent on remand continues to be taken into account when setting the term of the DTO.

Section 161: Youth rehabilitation orders

1. Section 161 makes amendments to youth rehabilitation order ("YRO") provisions set out in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 ("the 2008 Act") and the Code. These amendments are set out in Schedule 17.
2. The section allows certain provisions, those making changes to electronic monitoring requirements and YROs with intensive supervision and surveillance ("ISS") to be brought into force for specific purposes i.e. for the purposes of a pilot. The Section also gives the Secretary of State a power to make amendments by an affirmative statutory instrument to any piloted provisions before bringing them fully into force.

Schedule 17: Youth rehabilitation orders

1. Schedule 17 makes multiple amendments to the Code to replace the term "electronic monitoring requirement" in the Code with "electronic compliance monitoring requirement." This is to distinguish electronic monitoring for the purposes of compliance from the electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement and to mirror the language used for electronic monitoring for adult community sentences.
2. Part 1 of the Schedule introduces general requirements that an offender who is given an electronic monitoring requirement must comply with, including allowing the apparatus to be fitted and monitored, not interfering with its operation and keeping it in working order. New section 43A of the Code will apply to any electronic monitoring requirements imposed after the section comes into force and the new section 43A will be further amended (paragraph 12(9) and (10)) when piloted provisions come into force to reflect the change of language of electronic monitoring requirements to electronic compliance monitoring requirements.
3. Part 2 of the Schedule makes amendments to the YRO provisions in the Code and in the 2008 Act.
4. Paragraph 2 amends section 39 (youth default orders), replacing the term "electronic monitoring requirement" with "electronic compliance monitoring requirement" to ensure that the cross-reference to paragraphs of Schedules to the Code reflect the change in language which distinguishes electronic monitoring for the purposes of compliance from the new electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
5. Paragraph 9 confirms that the code of practice issued by the Secretary of State will apply to data gathered from electronic compliance and whereabouts monitoring requirements imposed as part of YROs.
6. This Schedule makes a number of amendments that introduce the new electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement for the YRO. Paragraph 12(13) defines this as a requirement to submit to electronic monitoring of the offender’s whereabouts and specifies how the requirement will function.
7. Part 3 of the Schedule amends provisions relating to YROs with ISS in the Code, adding a mandatory electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement to the YRO with ISS and changing the maximum length of the extended activity requirement from 180 to 365 days.
8. Paragraph 19 amends the YRO curfew requirement to change the maximum daily curfew hours from 16 to 20 and introduce a new weekly maximum of 112 hours.
9. Paragraph 21 amends the YRO education requirement to specify that it can be imposed on offenders beyond compulsory school age, provided they are still of the age where they must participate in compulsory education or training as set out in Part 1 the Education and Skills Act 2008. Part 1 of that Act only applies to offenders who are resident in England when sentenced to the YRO. The amendment to the section makes clear that for offenders who are resident in Wales, the education requirement can still only be imposed on offenders who are still of compulsory school age.
10. Part 5 of the Schedule amends the 2008 Act and the Code so that the electronic monitoring provider can no longer be the responsible officer for a YRO with electronic monitoring requirements and the responsible officer in these cases must be a member of a youth offending team or probation officer.

Section 162: Abolition of reparation orders

1. This section amends section 110(1) of the Code (availability of reparation order) to remove reparation orders as a sentencing option from the date this Section comes into force.