Courts fail to use custody alternatives, says report

Crime reduction charity Nacro will publish its youth crime briefing, Remands to Local Authority Accommodation: Secure and Non Secure, later this month.

It will show the number of court-ordered remands to local authority accommodation fell by 43 per cent over four years, from 2,613 in 2002/03 to 1,493 in 2006/07.

When young people aged 10 to 16 are refused bail before a trial, they can be remanded to local authority accommodation by the courts as an alternative to custody and are given looked-after child status. They are placed in the same types of accommodation as looked-after children.

Tim Bateman, senior youth policy development officer at crime reduction charity Nacro, said: "Because demand for local auth-ority accommodation fell, it could be seen that courts have less confidence in it."

He added there is anecdotal evidence that councils are ignoring courts and placing young people back with their families. "There's the tendency for young people remanded in that way to be treated as low priority by the authority," said Bateman. "It undermines the court's confidence in the system."

Mary Duff, chairwoman of the youth courts committee at the Magistrates' Association, said: "We have no reason to believe there is a lack of confidence in local authority care. However, we will talk to youth panel magistrates to ascertain the situation."

The Youth Justice Board declined to comment.