AYJ response to the Government’s white paper on youth justice

The Lord Chancellor is right to state in his foreword to the White Paper that we need "once-in-a-generation" reforms to deliver a decisive shift in youth justice. However, while this document takes some important steps in the right direction, it falls short of the bold, ambitious plan Alliance for Youth Justice members hoped for.

Too many vital reforms are merely qualified as areas to be "considered" or "explored." This tentative approach comes despite the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ), our members, and partners across the sector providing years of clear evidence on the radical changes needed to tackle systemic inequality, poor safety, and failing welfare standards in the youth justice system.

Jess Mullen, Chief Executive Officer at The Alliance for Youth Justice said,

“While we welcome the government's recognition that a decisive shift in youth justice is needed a truly transformative plan requires bold action, not tentative exploration. Steps toward reducing custody numbers, improving diversion, and reforming the criminal records system are positive but the government must move from 'considering' change to committing to it. To truly keep children – and communities - safe and fix a system in crisis, we need legislated limits on custody, a timeline and plan for the closure of Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) and a targeted commitment to dismantling the systemic racial disparities that history shows generic reforms fail to touch."

Remand, Sentencing, and Custody

Too often, custody is not being used as a last resort, or for the shortest appropriate time, as required under domestic law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Children in custody are extremely vulnerable, and negative custodial experiences may exacerbate and compound vulnerabilities, significantly affecting long-term development and life chances. Evidence does not suggest that custodial sentences deter crime, and the detention of children is incompatible with evidence on what brings about desistance from offending.

We therefore welcome reforms to custodial remand and the target to reduce its use by 25% as well as the acknowledgement that together the sentencing and remand reforms outlined could reduce the overall youth custody population by a further 20%.

However, we believe the proposed sentencing reforms could go much further than potentially raising the minimum term of Detention and Training Orders (DTOs) to preclude sentences under 12 months. We are also disappointed that these proposals were not subject to a fully transparent consultation that engaged openly with children in the justice system and the organisations supporting them. Implementing a legislative restriction on custody—ensuring it is strictly reserved for children convicted of the most serious offences who cannot be safely managed in the community—would reduce the youth custody population even further and finally bring our system into line with the UNCRC principle of custody as a last resort.

The Crisis in the Secure Estate

The White Paper rightly acknowledges that Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) are not fit for purpose. The sector has been making this point and calling for a coherent plan to address the secure estate crisis for years, yet children continue to be imprisoned in institutions that inspectorates have repeatedly found unsafe, with high levels of restraint and isolation, and minimal access to purposeful activity.

In 2024, the AYJ and our members contributed to the Youth Custody Service (YCS) Children and Young People’s Strategy, setting out the essential elements of a strategic approach to children in custody. Yet, the final strategy remains unpublished.

While we note the government's intention to publish a Youth Custody Transition Plan in Autumn 2026, we cannot overstate the urgent need for this plan to be truly bold. It must be built on open, transparent engagement with the sector and meaningfully incorporate our previous, long-standing feedback, including a renewed commitment to close YOIs and the last remaining Secure Training Centre, and a plan for increasing the capacity of Secure Children Homes, which provide the most appropriate environment currently available for children deprived of their liberty.

Keeping Children Safe

We welcome the commitment to addressing disparities in diversion from the youth justice system and the clear recognition that these are both geographic and demographic in nature, with Black children being less likely to be diverted from the system, as well as the government's recognition of the need to reconsider formal admissions of guilt—particularly for children who may lack trust in the legal system. We support the introduction of ‘outcome 23’ for deferred prosecution and its formal recognition as a positive policing outcome, reflecting its role in delivering diversion and supporting children. alongside plans for increased scrutiny and monitoring of Out of Court Resolutions (OOCRs). These are important steps toward addressing the current inconsistency and “postcode lottery” in OOCR use, and ensuring that diversion is both fair and effective.

Moving forward, we look forward to collaborating with our Keeping Children Safe and Racial Justice expert groups to provide detailed feedback to the OOCR review, ensuring these mechanisms deliver greater consistency, equity, and safety for all children.

Disproportionality and Inequality

While the White Paper correctly identifies the stark over-representation and disproportionate outcomes for Black, Mixed Heritage, and Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller children, it fails to sufficiently offer a coherent targeted action plan.

Simply asserting that these reforms will reduce inequality—without setting explicit targets for reducing disparities, outlining implementation plans, or establishing robust mechanisms for scrutiny, oversight, and accountability—is not enough. We just have to look at the overall reductions in custody numbers over the last two decades alongside the increased over-representation of Black children to know that that general improvements across the system do not automatically translate into better outcomes for racialised children. The government must develop a distinct plan setting out how these and future reforms will specifically dismantle racial disparities, backed by clear performance metrics and independent external scrutiny.

Age of Criminal Responsibility

There is an overwhelming consensus among our members, aligned with progressive changes in the devolved nations and international best practice on children’s rights, that the age of criminal responsibility must be raised. While the government’s commitment to "consider" this issue is a necessary acknowledgment of sector-wide pressure, true reform requires action, not just further consideration. A definitive commitment to raising the age would have demonstrated the bold leadership needed to bring our system into the 21st century.

Criminal Record Reform

Our criminal record system anchors children to their past mistakes long after they make them. It is a key feature of the cumulative disparities experienced by racialised children in their journeys into and throughout the youth justice system following them into their future. Allowing the sealing or expungement of childhood criminal records would enable children to grow up and move on. We welcome the commitment to further develop criminal record reform this year and look forward to feeding into this work. However, it is deeply disappointing that the government remains unconvinced by the case for sealing children’s criminal records despite the Lord Chancellor himself recommending this measure in his 2017 review.

Next Steps

The White Paper introduces a wide range of reforms beyond those we have highlighted here. Over the coming weeks and months, the AYJ will work closely with our members to thoroughly analyse the full breadth of these proposals.

We will continue to engage critically and constructively with the Ministry of Justice and other government departments, ensuring that the experience and expertise of the sector—grounded in evidence and the lived experiences of children—shapes the design and delivery of these reforms and pushing government to move from consideration to commitment.

We will continue to advocate for a youth justice system that is rights-based, evidence-led, and genuinely focused on children’s safety, wellbeing, and long-term success—and we stand ready to support the development of reforms that are bold enough to deliver this vision.

Hear our CEO Jess Mullen discussing the white paper on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC 5 Live Breakfast.