COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE

OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)

Justice Bill: Parts 5 and 6

9 December 2010

Members present for all or part of the proceedings:

Lord Morrow (Chairperson)
Mr Raymond McCartney (Deputy Chairperson)
Lord Browne
Mr Thomas Buchanan
Sir Reg Empey
Mr Paul Givan
Mr Alban Maginness
Mr Conall McDevitt
Ms Carál Ní Chuilín
Mr John O’Dowd

Witnesses:

Mr Paul Black	)	Department of Justice
Mr Tom Haire	)
Mr Gareth Johnston	)
Ms Janice Smiley	)
Ms Louise Cooper	)	Probation Board for Northern Ireland
Mr Hugh Hamill	)
Mr Brian McCaughey	)
Mr Pat Conway	)	Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders
Mr David Weir	)
Ms Edel Quinn	)	Include Youth
Ms Paula Rogers	)
Ms Koulla Yiasouma	)

The Chairperson (Lord Morrow):

Today’s session will focus on Parts 5 and 6 of the Justice Bill and schedule 4, relating to the treatment of offenders and alternatives to prosecution. We were to be out of the last session by 3.00 pm and it is now 3.20 pm, so we have some time to make up. From here on in, strict timings will be enforced. I ask members to bear that in mind when they are asking questions. I welcome Mr Johnston and his team. There will be 10 minutes for each oral presentation and 20 minutes for questions — strictly, otherwise we could be here until 10.00 pm, and I suspect that no one is up for that at the moment.

Members have been provided with an Assembly Research Services paper and a paper on the issues raised in other relevant written submissions on the treatment of offenders and the alternatives to prosecution.

Mr Gareth Johnston (Department of Justice):

I will ask Tom Haire, the head of the criminal law branch, to speak to Part 5 of the Bill, which is about treatment of offenders, and then Janice Smiley will speak to Part 6, which is about alternatives to prosecution.

The Chairperson:

There may have been a misunderstanding on my part; it is five minutes for presentations. I suspect you will not need more than that anyway.

Mr Tom Haire (Department of Justice):

I am not sure. I will give a fairly short summary of Part 5, which contains only eight clauses. It builds on and adjusts existing sentencing powers. It does not create any new offences; it just enhances the court’s powers in a number of disparate areas.

Clause 56 increases the penalty for common assault when dealt with summarily to six months. A penalty of two years is also available on indictment within existing law. The change brings the base sentence for common assault up to the same level as an existing offence called aggravated common assault. That offence is actually being repealed in the Bill, and it is all being amalgamated into one single same-penalty offence for common assault.

Clause 57 increases the penalty for having an offensive weapon on school premises and brings it into line with our knife and offensive weapons package. It doubles the summary conviction penalty from six months to 12 months. Again, indictment is already available and carries a sentence of four years. Together with clause 98, it puts our knife crime and offensive weapons powers into one single set of provisions.

Clause 58 extends the period for which a sentence can be deferred from six to 12 months. That will provide an increased opportunity for courts to monitor and assess offenders, and will allow victims to see how offenders respond before a court passes sentence.

Clause 59 improves the existing legislation on sex offender licensing. It deals with the breaching of licences when a residency requirement, which is currently in law, determines which court an offender should be brought to. The current statutory reference to where the offender resides can cause difficulties in a limited number of cases. We are improving the law to correct those anomalies, and to ensure that the correct court is available in the correct circumstances.

Clause 60 is a technical amendment, which will correct the type of judge who can impose, extend or discharge a closure order. A closure order is used to close premises which have been used, for example, for certain prostitution offences under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I should point out that that particular provision has not yet been commenced. It is a preparatory adjustment, so that the right level of judge will consider closure order applications.

We last spoke to the Committee on 27 May about proposals for alternatives to prosecution. At that time, we indicated that the proposals were for an expansion of fixed penalties and the introduction of conditional cautions. That was to help system efficiency in dealing with minor offending by first time and non-habitual offenders in three ways: enabling offences to be dealt with proportionately at an early juncture without a full prosecution; enabling police and prosecutorial resources to be better directed to front line policing duties and prosecuting more serious offending; and utilising conditional cautions to begin addressing the sorts of behaviour that underpin the commission of offences and to minimise the risk of reoffending. Although those provide opportunities for certain uncontested cases to be dealt with soon after the commission of the offence, offenders still retain their rights to ask for the offence to be tried at court instead.

Part 6 of the Bill contains 20 clauses. Clauses 64 to 75 in Chapter 1 deal with the creation of the fixed penalties that build on existing fixed penalty powers already exercised by the police when dealing with certain road traffic offences.

Clause 64 and schedule 4 set out the eligible offences and identify which of them attract the £40 penalty and which the £80 penalty. Those are set out in the paper that we provided to the Committee. There are certain limitations on their use for some particular offences, and those will be set out in departmental guidance to police. They include, for example, that indecent behaviour is limited to urination in the street, that criminal damage is limited to a maximum of £200, and that retail theft is for a first offence only, up to a value of £100. We had originally proposed that a fixed penalty for retail theft would be available only when the goods were recovered in a saleable condition. The Committee will recall that it asked us to consider whether we might extend that to cover incidents where the goods were not saleable but the retailer had been compensated for their loss. I can confirm that the guidance will include that provision. An order-making power in that clause provides that any future amendments to the list of offences or the penalty rates will come back to the Committee and the Assembly for consideration.

Clauses 65 and 66 create the penalty notice powers in respect of adult offenders and establish that a penalty notice must contain certain information, such as details of the offence, the penalty amount, how it can be paid and how the recipient can exercise their rights within 28 days to request a court hearing instead.

Clauses 67 and 68 explain the effect of the penalty notice and set restrictions on instituting prosecution proceedings. They provide that proceedings may not be brought against the person until the 28 days have elapsed from the date of issue, unless that person has exercised their right to request, in the prescribed manner, that they be tried at court. Where no request is made or the penalty remains unpaid after that 28-day period, the penalty will be increased by 50% and registered as a court fine.

Clause 69 enables the Department to issue guidance to police about the operation of fixed penalties. I have already indicated that that will include certain restrictions on particular offences. However, it will also include, for example, considering the impact of an offence on a victim and preventing issue in circumstances where an otherwise eligible offence may have been motivated by issues such as domestic violence, hate crime or behaviour of a sexual nature.

Clause 70 sets out the procedures for a payment of penalty to the individual specified on the penalty notice. Clauses 71 and 72 describe the process for dealing with the registration of fixed penalties that remain unpaid 28 days after issue. That gives the Chief Constable a power to issue a registration certificate on default of the penalty sum, which enables it to be registered as a court fine. Courts are also empowered to register the sum and issue a notice of registration to the defaulter requiring payment within 21 days from the date of registration. From this point onwards, the registered penalty sum is subject to the same enforcement procedures as any court-imposed fine.

Clause 73 provides the ability for an individual who receives a notice of registration to challenge the notice. In order to do so, he or she must make a statutory declaration to the court that either they are not the person to whom the penalty notice had been issued or that they had, in fact, exercised their right to request a court hearing within the prescribed 28-day period. The clause enables the court, where appropriate, to either void the enforcement proceedings or treat the case as though that request had been made within the 28-day period.

Clause 74 provides a similar power for the court to set aside, of its own volition, a registered sum that is enforced as a fine in the interests of justice. It is envisaged that that will be used in circumstances where the court has become aware that the individual is not the person to whom the penalty notice was issued or that it was not reasonable to expect that the individual who had received it could have complied with the requirements set out in the penalty notice. Clauses 73 and 74 are important safeguarding provisions and protect the rights of individuals where an offence has been dealt with by means of a non-court fixed penalty disposal. Clause 75 simply explains the meaning of the terms that have been used in Chapter 1.

I turn now to Chapter 2. Clauses 76 to 84 deal with the creation of a new conditional caution disposal, which can be directed by a public prosecutor for suitable offences committed by adult offenders. This may be used in some instances for first-time offending. However, it is perhaps more suitable for individuals who have already shown some history of minor offending that suggests an ongoing pattern of offending that might best be tackled by compliance with conditions.

Clause 76 makes provision for the conditional caution to be given by an authorised person — either a police officer or, where it is a departmental prosecution, a person authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It specifies that the conditions attached to the caution, with which the offender must comply, should have a rehabilitative or reparative objective. Rehabilitative conditions may include, for example, participating in a programme dealing with substance misuse or with other offending behaviour aspects of a chaotic lifestyle. Reparative conditions might provide the opportunity for a course of action to be agreed between a victim and offender as to how the harm caused to the victim can be repaired.

Members of the Committee will remember that they raised the question of the role that restorative justice interventions might play, and this is one of the examples where we might see that being deployed. There could also be short-term restrictive elements applied to either type of condition. For example, a prohibition might be placed on entering certain premises or areas if the prosecutor considered that that would help to achieve the objectives of the conditions.

Clause 77 sets out the five requirements that must be satisfied before the initial caution is given. In summary, these are: that there is sufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution against the individual for the offence; that there has been an admission of the offence to an authorised person; that the effects of the initial caution and the consequences of failure to comply have been explained to the offender; and that the offender signs a document detailing the offence, their admission, the conditions being attached and their consent to the disposal.

Clause 78 creates a power for the public prosecutor, with the consent of the offender, to vary the conditions that have been imposed by modifying, adding or removing a condition. That is to provide a bit of flexibility around adjusting circumstances that might arise after the initial caution is given to help achieve the objectives. Clause 79 makes provision for criminal proceedings to be brought where there is a failure to comply with a condition without reasonable excuse.

Clause 80 provides a power of arrest without warrant where a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe that an offender has, without reasonable excuse, failed to comply with conditions attached to the initial caution. It will not always be necessary to effect an arrest to ascertain whether a breach has been made without reasonable excuse, but the power has been created for circumstances where that might be a necessary course of action. The code of practice included in the Bill will provide clear guidance on the exercise of that power of arrest.

Clause 80 also makes provision for the handling of cases where the arrest power has been exercised, providing that the individual can be charged with the original offence, bailed pending a decision on charging, or released without charge or bail either with or without any variation of conditions. Clause 81 ensures the relevant provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 apply to any person arrested under clause 80.

Clause 82 requires the Department to produce a code of practice and provides an indication of a range of issues that it should incorporate. These include the circumstances, procedures and places in which a conditional caution may be given and by whom, the conditions that may be attached and the period that they will have effect. It will also include information on the monitoring of conditions and the exercise of the power of arrest and consequential procedures. The code will be published in draft form for consultation and cannot be published or amended without the consent of the Attorney General. It will be laid in the Assembly and brought into operation by Order.

Clause 83 enables the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) to assist public prosecutors in determining whether a conditional caution should be given and to provide assistance in the supervision and rehabilitation of persons to whom conditional cautions are given. It is more of a permissive provision than an obligatory statutory requirement and enables the Public Prosecution Service to draw on the expertise of PBNI in relation to the consideration of individual cases. Clause 84 provides interpretation for the terms that are used in the Chapter.

We will leave it there. You are staying with us and will be coming back to the table a little later. Thank you very much.

The next evidence session is with representatives from the Probation Board. I welcome Mr Brian McCaughey, who is the director, Hugh Hamill, who is the assistant director, and Louise Cooper, who is the head of business planning and development. You have 10 minutes to outline your brief — although I suspect that you will not need that long — and then there will be 20 minutes for questions.

Mr Brian McCaughey (Probation Board Northern Ireland):

Thank you very much. I intend to give a broad overview of the work of the Probation Board, although some members are very familiar with our work. After that, I will focus on Parts 5 and 6 of the Bill.

The Probation Board and its work are enshrined in legislation. Our functions are set out in the Probation Board (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, and further responsibilities are outlined in the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 and the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. Part of that legislation empowers us to contribute funding to the voluntary and community sector. We have allocated £1·3 million to 57 voluntary and community organisations over the past year, including some of our colleagues who you will hear from this afternoon.

Our role can be summarised under four core elements: ensuring that offenders comply with the sentences imposed by the courts; reducing reoffending; minimising harm; and working with offenders to promote and develop responsible citizenship. The Bill will assist us in those elements of work and help us to make a contribution to making Northern Ireland safer.

The board employs 420 staff across 31 locations, including three prison sites. All probation officers hold a professional qualification in social work. They are committed to their jobs, believe in what they are doing and work to a very high standard. All of them undertake continuous professional development.

On an annual basis, we prepare 6,000 reports for courts. On a daily basis, we supervise 4,300 orders, including probation orders, custody probation orders, combination orders, community service orders, article 26 licences and life licences, and the range of new public protection sentences. In our work, we deliver challenging programmes that tackle issues such as violent behaviour, sexual offending, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, domestic violence and anger management. We also play a full role in the public protection arrangements for Northern Ireland, chairing all the local committees.

We continually review our work and continually try to be at the forefront of testing out new ideas. Some of our recent partnerships have included the Inspire Women’s Project, which delivers services in the greater Belfast area, forging new partnerships across the voluntary and community sector. We have also developed a priority youth offending project with the Youth Justice Agency, which tackles the issue of higher-risk young people, and we have a very successful community service scheme working right across Northern Ireland in 300 community-based locations, which delivers over 140,000 hours of unpaid work. Our victims’ unit was established in 2005, and it provides information to victims when someone has been sentenced to an order that requires supervision.

I will move on to the Bill. We support the principle of offenders paying back for their crime, which is encapsulated in the offender levy under Part 1, and we also wanted to mention policing and community safety partnerships. I know that those are not issues for today and that there will be a chance to talk about those again. We understand that there will be a further meeting, and we wish to participate in that.

I will focus on Parts 4 and 5 and start with the treatment of offenders. I will look first at clause 59, “Breach of licence conditions by sex offenders” and then at supervised activity orders, which are covered in Part 5. The Probation Board welcomes the proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 through the insertion of paragraph (11) as a means of overcoming problems associated with petty session boundaries in respect of warrant applications for offenders residing in Northern Ireland. It would be beneficial to extend the amendment to custody probation orders and probation orders.

The Probation Board welcomes the proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice Order to address the residency gap regarding sex offenders who are in the territory of Northern Ireland. As the law stands at present, article 26 licences are limited to the territory of Northern Ireland. The Probation Board recommends that legislative change is made to extend the provision of article 26 licences to the jurisdiction of England and Wales and the jurisdiction of Scotland.

As regards supervised activity orders, the Probation Board has made preparations to pilot that disposal and can see the benefit of those orders, such as the direct benefit to the community through community service work and reserving prison for those who pose the greatest risk to the public.

It is our view that there are advantages to introducing alternatives to prosecution, and our experience has been that there are some cases that could be dealt with outside the formal court hearing; for example, those that involve low-level offending or in which there are verified mental health issues. It is crucial, however, that, in considering alternatives to prosecution, the views of victims are taken into account. Chairperson, you recently spoke about a day in court having a sobering effect on people. I agree that it is not only important because it allows offenders to understand the gravity of what they have done but because it allows victims to see that justice is being done. Alternatives to prosecution may, however, be appropriate in certain conditions, but the views of victims and victims’ representatives must be taken into consideration and the criteria must be clear, transparent and applied consistently.

That is correct.

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey, I want to put you over something that you said so that I can get it into my head. You said that the expenditure may not be justifiable. The PPS was before the Committee on Tuesday, and we raised the issue of a court case concerning the alleged theft of an item that cost £1·79. The answer that I got from the Minister was that expenditure on that case was, I think, about £15,000. I suspect that the PPS thinks that that is money well spent but that you are not of that opinion. You feel that a lot of money could be saved by doing it in another way. I read a newspaper article that highlighted that there are tens of thousands of unpaid small fines in the English courts. Do you think that we would be better at getting people to pay fines than they are?

Mr McCaughey:

I have lots of views on how we could be more creative in engaging people for non-payment of fines. A probation order costs around £4,000, and a community service order costs around £2,000. We have 4,300 people under supervision, and we are the most effective probation service on these islands. This justice system has a good news story, and we should build on that. Our effectiveness is unrivalled.

I certainly share some of those views, but some of the factors and drivers for change in England and Wales do not exist in Northern Ireland. Prisons in England and Wales are very overcrowded. They have introduced an early release scheme, and sentencing around the public protection arrangements has resulted in an overcrowding of prisons, because they removed discretion from the judiciary as to whether somebody is deemed dangerous. That has had a consequence for the prison population.

I absolutely believe that we should be as creative as possible in the management of offenders in the community. We in Northern Ireland are an exemplar when it comes to how the probation service delivers its services in, with and through the community. I refer to the fact that we financially support 57 voluntary and community partners. We have 300 partners in the delivery of our community service scheme. In England and Wales, the Home Secretary is attempting to broaden the involvement of the voluntary and community sector and the private sector in the oversight of offenders. We already do that. I will be making that clear to the Government in our correspondence.

Overall, prison needs to be reserved for the people who are most dangerous and who will cause hurt and harm to us and our families. Those people need to be in prison, and they should not be released until they have evidenced a reduction in their risk. However, it is an expensive resource, and, therefore, we need to use that option wisely, and we should use all our resources across all our Departments to work collaboratively to reduce crime and the harm that it does. That is the challenge that we face.

The Chairperson:

Thank you for your presentation. If you wish to remain in the Public Gallery, you may do so. The officials will come back and deal with some of the issues that you raised.

Members, we move to the next presentation, which is by the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO). It is on the treatment of offenders and alternatives to prosecution. I welcome Mr David Weir, director of family services, and Pat Conway, director of adult services. Gentlemen, you are welcome. You have 10 minutes to outline the issues.

Mr Pat Conway (Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders):

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to amplify the written evidence that we submitted. NIACRO provides services under the headings of working with children and young people who offend; providing services to families and children of offenders; supporting offenders and ex-prisoners in the community; and working with prisoners. We also prize the connection from practice to policy comment. Mr Weir and I will focus on Part 6 of the Bill. Mr Weir will lead on alternatives to prosecution, and I have a few words to say about the offender levy. We will stick to the 10-minute timescale.

Mr David Weir (Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders):

We support the concept of providing effective alternatives to prosecution. We are a bit concerned that the proposed legislation appears to focus almost exclusively on monetary penalties. We have raised the concern before that the proposed legislation does not particularly address the issue of fine default, and our concern is that the proposition of a focus on further monetary fixed penalties, including fixed penalty notices, will increase the risk of people being in default of payment.

The consequence of default can be admission to custody. From our reading of the Department of Justice’s report on the Northern Ireland prison population in 2009, it seems that 24% of all receptions into prison were for fine default. That represents 1,400 people. By our calculations, an average of 29 or 30 people a week enter custody for fine default. That must represent a colossal drain on the resources of the Prison Service. Our colleagues from the Probation Board referred to managing the admission, detention and discharge of a revolving prison population and the amount of the Prison Service’s time that that must absorb. Those resources are not then being directed towards effective resettlement.

Our argument is that the proposals in the Justice Bill have the potential to increase that drain on prison resources. We are not arguing that people should not be fined or that they should not pay their fines. In many cases, a monetary penalty can be an effective tool, both as a punishment and as a deterrent. However, we are arguing that the monetary penalties for some are neither an effective deterrent nor an effective punishment. By way of illustration, we are working with a family where a single mother with four children has received fines for non-payment of her TV licence.

We are not suggesting that she should avoid the responsibility of paying for her TV licence. However, we are suggesting that imposing a fine on someone who is already in financial difficulty is not a solution. She is subject to arrest and has, in fact, been arrested. She has borrowed money to pay the fine, so she continues to be in debt and is an increasingly disadvantaged financial position. We would, therefore, like an alternative alternative to prosecution for that type of incident.

By way of comparison, someone in debt to a credit card company or bank has the possibility of entering into a voluntary agreement to pay that off over time. Similarly, we argue that someone in default of a TV licence should, for example, have the facility to enter into a voluntary agreement to discharge that responsibility. In that type of context, we believe that an appropriate disposal and alternative to prosecution is referral to a debt counselling service as opposed to recourse through a monetary penalty. That case illustrates our vision of alternatives to prosecution as more of a diversion to a service.

Through direct work with our client group, we have also seen other examples of where monetary penalties and prosecution do not actually address the causes of offending. We are not talking about letting people away with it. We are, instead, talking about situations in which an offence has been committed and the police or Public Prosecution Service, while expressing societal disapproval of that, consider that a monetary penalty could actually increase the risk of custody and of the person being criminalised through default of payment. The sort of instances that we believe should be considered for alternatives to alternatives are poor money management skills, where that is a contributor to offending; homelessness or inadequate accommodation, where that is a contributor; mental health issues, and drug and alcohol issues; and the types of low-level assaults and aggression that are associated with alcohol-related behaviour.

We have some concerns that the proposed legislation, at is stands, runs the risk of providing a quick and efficient way of reducing court lists. However, we do not regard that as a particularly effective way of preventing offending and believe that it would, in fact, lead to criminalisation.

Clause 69 states that the Department may issue guidance about the exercise of discretion given to police officers. We urge that that guidance contain a clause setting out that, in appropriate circumstances, police officers should consider a referral to an appropriate service as opposed to a fixed penalty notice. We are not arguing for that as a single solution to all situations but as something that could be considered as an alternative disposal. Having said that, we do not want such discretion to be unmonitored, and we expect the exercise of that discretion to be applied fairly and consistently across the jurisdiction.

Conditional cautions provide a second bite at the referral to a service. However, such referrals are conditional and, therefore, enforceable. We support that concept as an alternative to prosecution and a court disposal. However, we are anxious that, rather than eating into the higher-level disposals, conditional cautions would actually creep downwards and that people who were not previously involved in that level of disposal would creep into it.

Mr Conway:

To reinforce what David said: we anticipated that we would be asked about the alternatives. We run a series of projects that we call “assisting people and communities”. We have people working directly with women offenders and ex-prisoners. We also have people working with individuals who were given no support when they were discharged from Hydebank. Those individuals are usually subject to short sentences and do not come out with any probation support. They are the people who are most likely to go back into communities, reoffend and then to re-enter the prison system. We have a person working on mental health issues related to offenders, including addictions. There are also people who are working with young people through our child and parent support (Caps) programme.

We agree with the concept of the offender levy, in so far as it is a tool for offenders to address their behaviour through understanding the impact on victims. However, the legislation, as it stands, does not require the criminal justice system to explain to offenders why they must or should pay. If it is the intention to make offenders more accountable, we would argue that they must understand what they are paying, and for what reasons. We remain concerned about the departmental view that moneys for administration will be taken from existing budgets, not the proceeds of the levy. We recommend that that be reviewed annually, along with a published report that details where the money has gone. In short, if the two issues of the offender levy and alternatives to prosecution are bundled together, we feel that any alternatives that are arrived at need to have connectivity to the community. They need to be resourced, and by that we do not necessarily mean financially, but through the training of police officers and others in the criminal justice system.

Any scheme should be subject to regular review and underpinned by a “what works” philosophy.

The Chairperson:

Thank you very much for your insight and your time. You spoke about community projects. Did you have in mind, for instance, the clearing of snow from footpaths, etc?

Mr Conway:

Not immediately. We have very good councils that do that, apparently. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson:

In the absence of councils’ debating whether they should do that, perhaps you could consider it as one of your projects.

You are quite emphatic in your paper that fines do not normally change behaviour. We are told that prison does not normally change behaviour. What do you think would change a person’s behaviour?

Mr D Weir:

It is relatively easy to enter the criminal justice system but far more difficult to extract people, and once they are in prison, a whole series of consequences may arise.

Mr McDevitt:

Let us say for argument’s sake that the police officer was able to apply a quick ability-to-pay test by saying, for example, “I am proposing to fine you, are you able to meet this fine?” Say the individual before him says, “No”. What specifically are you asking us to legislate for in that scenario?

Mr Conway:

To maintain an ability to divert people from the criminal justice system, utilise the resources that exist in the communities that those people will eventually be hosted in, and have those needs addressed.

Mr McDevitt:

Give us an example.

Mr Conway:

Our women’s project has a relationship with the Women’s Support Network. We are involved in a project with it. People who come out of prison and are on probation work with women’s centres. We have a pilot project running in Belfast at the moment. Those centres will host them and attend to those needs.

If a crime is committed, or a TV licence is not paid, for example, it has to be addressed and flagged up. However, if the issue is inability to pay, those needs have to be addressed to stop a downward spiral that continues into the criminal justice system.

Mr O’Dowd:

I am interested in Ken Clarke’s approach to the justice system. I watched ‘Newsnight’, which was recently broadcast from a prison. I thought it most enlightening, especially given the difference between Ken Clarke’s political views on life and my own. He has a very enlightened view on justice. It was useful.

Your briefing paper gives us the example of James. You recommend that a police officer should be equipped to direct potential offenders or offenders into diversionary or rehabilitation services. Is a police officer sufficiently trained to do that?

Mr D Weir:

To be fair: I said that that clause seems to offer that possibility. I am not saying that that is necessarily a solution. However, within the legislation as drafted, it seems that that possibility is there.

Pat mentioned the requirement for a police officer to be trained in that decision-making. It is not that long ago that we had youth diversion officers. The arresting officer could refer the child to a diversion officer who was trained specifically on how to respond to the particular situation. His or her choices were to give an informal warning, a restorative caution or to proceed to prosecution. Therefore, somewhere in there the facility and ability exists. Whether it is with the front line police office who comes across the offence, I do not know. I was only saying that I see that clause as providing that possibility.

Mr Conway:

We are concerned that the police may be, in effect, judge and jury. We need an independent arbiter, but decisions need to be made to be rapidly. When young people, or anyone for that matter, commit an offence, often it is dealt with nine months later, which is a bit of a nonsense. There must be immediacy. If someone has done wrong and admits to it, that is an easy one. It should be more easily dealt with than it is now, but I am not convinced that the police should have the functions of judge and jury.

Mr O’Dowd:

The other side of the coin is that, if the system was working properly and young people in particular were being redirected away from the criminal justice system, are there sufficient support networks out there for young people to be directed towards?

Mr D Weir:

I am not entirely convinced about that, as you might imagine, but we do not think that their spending three months in custody or wherever would necessarily create that opportunity or that it would appear while they were there. The shortage of resources is a continuing issue, and needs to be worked on. We know that it can be done. In some areas of work, we have demonstrated how we can work with 18- to 25-year-olds with mental health issues who are returning to the community from custody. We want to see investment in that area.

However, we also want to draw on the ordinary, everyday mainstream resources that exist. One of my anxieties is about ensuring that the criminal justice system does not become the route to services. Mental health, addiction and counselling services are already there. Using the criminal justice system as a way of getting to them seems inappropriate.

Mr O’Dowd:

We visited Hydebank recently and were informed that, occasionally, a judge would send people there for services that do not exist — rehabilitation services and so on. It looks well on the sheet, they did not want to send the person to prison, so they sent them to Hydebank for services, but they do not exist. I agree with your thought process of how we deal with this, but we have to ensure that, if we are doing it that way, we support the services at the other end.

The Chairperson:

The NIACRO example about James mentions that he is 22 years old. If he is caught shoplifting an item under the cost of £100 from Tesco, or even one that costs £1·79, we know where he is going. The question is: what age is a “young person”? Is James a “young person”?

Mr D Weir:

The protocol in England and Wales is that a young person is 18- to 21-years-old. We would probably go with 18- to 25-years-old, just to match the Hydebank population.

The Chairperson:

Your analysis is that James would not reoffend. Reading your submission, I would not be very sure about that. However, that is a call that everybody makes in life.

Mr D Weir:

The problem with preventative services is that people know about only the failures.

Mr Buchanan:

You spoke about alternatives to prosecution and the concept of diverting young people away from the courts system. What, in your opinion, defines the difference between a slap on the wrist, a fixed penalty notice or fine or something like that? Who makes the decision as to whether it is a slap on the wrist or whether it is something that deserves much more than that?

Mr D Weir:

That is the skill in the assessment process and all those outcomes have their place. The problem is assuming that one of them has more efficacy than others. A slap on the wrist for my son would probably be mortifying, but for other people, it might not be quite so mortifying. A slap on the wrist would have been mortifying for me.

For some young people, and some of the adults who we work with, their sense of self-worth and how they are viewed by others is so flawed and low down that further approbation or opprobrium from the state or the court will not do anything to help lift them out of that. It is for those people that we argue that a slap on the wrist does not do anything except confirm their inadequacy. We suggest that a referral to a service has greater potential to change their behaviour. However, fining someone who is already in financial straits or imprisoning somebody who has already lost their social contacts and community supports does not address, or have the same potential to change, their behaviour.

Mr Conway:

There is a fundamental issue here about citizenship and people’s contribution to society. You can get into nebulous, ethereal territory about the respect for people and property. I am not sure that that is fully accepted in some areas in Northern Ireland, and there is variance in that. People talked about rights and responsibilities, and it is correct to say that young people — people up to the age of 25 — feature disproportionately in the criminal justice system. There is an issue about promotion of citizenship, and that brings in people from outside the criminal justice system from the education system and the political classes. We must be clear on what that is, what that means and what the impact of it is.

Three or four years ago, we were in a period of economic well-being, and we have been trying to get people into employment as a solution. It is generally recognised that getting people into a job will address and reduce their offending behaviour. That task will become much more much difficult, and, for economic reasons, the numbers of people who come before the courts will probably increase. We need to counter that in some way, but that project is much wider than being purely for the Department of Justice or the criminal justice system to deal with.

The Chairperson:

Once you leave it to subjectivity, you can be taken in all sorts of territory. It is about knowing where the bar is.

Mr D Weir:

We urged that, if our proposal were adopted, it would need to be monitored strenuously. The guidelines would have to be clear enough to allow the room for discretion not to be too wide and to allow the equity of it to be measured and monitored.

The Chairperson:

Gentlemen, we are stopping there. Thank you for coming.

In the next briefing session, we will hear from representatives from Include Youth. We welcome Koulla Yiasouma, Edel Quinn and Paula Rogers. Koulla is the director, Edel is the policy manager and Paula is the policy co-ordinator. Ladies, we welcome you to the meeting, and you have 10 minutes to outline your brief, after which we may have some questions.

Ms Koulla Yiasouma (Include Youth):

On behalf of Include Youth, we are delighted to be here once again to give evidence to the Committee on the Justice Bill. As the Chairperson pointed out, I am joined by my colleagues Edel Quinn, who is the policy manager, and Paula Rogers, who is our policy co-ordinator. I am aware that you have had a busy and tiring afternoon, so we will try to be as brief as possible. We heard the evidence from our colleagues in our partner organisation NIACRO, and we will try, where possible, not to repeat what they said. I agree with many of their points.

I hope that, by now, members are aware of the work of Include Youth, but I will recap. We are a voluntary organisation with over 30 years experience of working with young people in need or at risk. We work at policy and practice level. We work directly with young people aged between 14 and 21 through a number of schemes, including Give and Take, which addresses employability, and policy and consultation work with young people in Hydebank Wood, the Juvenile Justice Centre and across the community in Northern Ireland.

Our comments will draw heavily on work in our manifesto for youth justice, which all the Committee members have received and, no doubt, have read on several occasions. Include Youth commends the Minister and the Department of Justice for seeking to implement alternatives to prosecution. We are a strong advocate for the development of effective alternatives to prosecution, and we welcome the inclusion of measures that will successfully divert young adults form offending behaviour and away from the criminal justice system.

We, like NIACRO, will talk exclusively about Part 6. We welcome the fact that the proposals will not be applied to under-18s, but we remain concerned about their potential adverse impact on vulnerable adults, particularly up to the age of 21. As I said, our Give and Take scheme works with that vulnerable group. I will try to give you a very quick understanding of who the scheme works with and and where our experiences come from: 100% of the young people with whom we work are considered NEET, i.e. not in education, employment or training; three quarters of them are in care or from a care background; 70% have essential skills difficulties, i.e. they do not have the standard of education required to join the world of work; 60% come from a socio-economically deprived background; and nearly half have experienced significant abuse or neglect as children.

What do we believe works in crime reduction? Members have heard me say on several occasions that I am the first to want to stop offending of any kind. I do not want my children to grow up in a community that is unsafe and in which they will be harmed in any way. I do not want my family members or those who are close to me to live in fear of any sort of activity by anyone, including young adults, that would cause them anxiety or distress. Include Youth accepts that that type of unacceptable behaviour must be addressed effectively. It is not about being soft on young adults or making excuses for them; it is about finding the option that best fits. Having heard members’ questions, I know that that is something that we can explore much further when we are being questioned.

We are concerned that the proposals focus exclusively on fines and conditional cautions, both of which can result in a criminal conviction and which do little to address the underlying causes of behaviour. Those methods are unlikely to be as effective as a mixture of holistic community-based diversionary measures that address the reasons behind that type of offending.

Our evidence today is set in the context of the wider piece of work that we are undertaking to inform the ongoing youth justice review, in which alternatives to prosecution will form a central part. With that in mind, we are concerned about the timing of the introduction of the Bill, particularly as there are a number of ongoing critical reviews on parallel issues that should inform the development of law, policy and practice in respect of alternatives to prosecution and some of the other measures that are outlined in the Bill. Those include youth justice, the prison review and the work on the strategy on offending. It is not helpful that those proposals have pre-empted the outcomes of those reviews. I will now hand over to Paula.

Ms Paula Rogers (Include Youth):

Before I talk about our substantive concerns about fixed penalty notices and conditional cautions, I want to take the opportunity to very briefly talk about some of our concerns about the EQIA. I will not take up much time. We produced a written submission, and we have a number of procedural concerns as well as substantive equality concerns, the first of which is about the lack of meaningful consultation. Members will be aware that the EQIA was put out for consultation from 12 August to 4 November of this year. However, the Bill was introduced to the Assembly on 18 October, which was before the consultation had closed and all the responses had been received and analysed. We believe that that is in breach of the Department’s statutory obligation under schedule 9 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Secondly, we believe that the screening process was flawed. It failed to properly identify significant potential adverse impact on young males in respect of the current proposals on alternatives to prosecution. Thirdly, we think that that led to a wrong decision to not conduct a full EQIA.

The concerns that we will outline arise precisely because of their potential to adversely impact on young men. Those issues need to be fully explored and remedied. We ask that Committee members seek further information and clarification on those issues from the Department and ask that the Department conducts a full EQIA.

We have a number of concerns about fixed penalty notices and conditional cautions. Both of those measures can result in a criminal record, which will increase barriers to education, training and employment opportunities. Both can draw young people into the criminal justice system, including, potentially, into custody for what originated as a minor offence. Both fail to adequately or at all address the underlying reasons that can give rise to offending. They also fail to deal with the 1,700 people who spend short periods in custody as a result of fine default. Those people have no opportunity to access the necessary diversionary programmes of support to help them to desist from offending in the future. As you have already heard, they could also disproportionately impact on groups with very low incomes.

Fixed penalty notices may have a detrimental impact on young adults for a number of reasons, the first of which is to do with their inability to pay the fines. That is plain and simple to understand. There is concern that they will be more likely to accept the fine and will not be aware of the implications of doing so or that they will not be aware of the consequences of not paying it. They are likely to agree to anything just to get out of the immediate situation in which they find themselves. Young people may also not understand the process, which is a real concern and can often be down to poor communication skills, limited social and intellectual development or special needs, including mental health, alcohol or substance misuse problems.

Research in England has shown that fixed penalty notices have led to an increase in the number of people being put into custody. That research was done by Professor Rod Morgan, who is the former chairperson of the Youth Justice Board. We can get the Committee more information on that, if required.

The Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve, speaking in 2009, when he was still the shadow Justice Secretary, warned that the increasing use of administrative penalties represented an undermining of justice. We share that concern. There also needs to be clarification of how police officers assess the correct age of an individual. Could there be ambiguity over the age of a young person? We want clarification on that.

We are also concerned about the possibility of an overenthusiastic application of fixed penalty notices for young adults and the degree of discretion that police officers will have to issue them. The risk is that the situation regarding minor offences, which might previously have been dealt with very informally, will escalate to the use of a penalty. We recommend that, if the decision is made to go ahead with fixed penalty notices, at the very least a robust mechanism should be used to assure effective police training and regular monitoring and oversight of powers.

We support the concept of conditional cautions in principle. However, we suggest that a conditional caution should not appear on a criminal record and that its purpose should genuinely be about rehabilitation. We are concerned that the rehabilitative aspect of the cautions is not a mandatory component of the proposals in the legislation as currently drafted. We are also concerned that the proposals appear to provide for statutory criminal agencies to deliver the rehabilitative programmes. We believe that the programmes would be best delivered by organisations that are currently working in the community, such as NIACRO and community-based organisations that provide drug and alcohol support, suicide prevention support and family support.

We accept that our suggestion may require additional investment, but we would argue that that will reap a significant long-term saving. For example, the total annual cost of keeping a young person up to the age of 21 in prison is £88,181. A young person who is not in education, employment or training in 2008 will cost an average of £56,000 in public finance before retirement age. Research has shown that £4,000 of short-term support to a teenage mother, for example, can reduce public service costs by nearly £200,000 over a lifetime. Those are simple sums.

In conclusion, we support community-based diversionary measures that are run by local communities and use models of restorative justice. Those models, which are centred on strengthening and supporting families, are more likely to prevent offending and are, therefore, a more viable alternative to prosecution than those proposed under this legislation.

We are disappointed that the Minister has decided to proceed with the proposals to address alternatives to prosecution in advance of the outcome of the prison review, the youth justice review and the review on reducing offending. With regard to the current proposals, we submit that fining vulnerable and marginalised young adults will not stop them committing crime and will not ultimately make the community safer. The evidence is clear that putting vulnerable young adults into custody does not prevent offending and that it costs the public purse hugely. We would like to see community-based diversionary measures that are delivered in a timely matter and that not only address the underlying causes of offending but support the person who has committed the infringement to take responsibility for his or her action and the harm or hurt that it has caused individuals and the wider community.

The Chairperson:

Thank you very much. You finished inside your time by 10 seconds or thereabouts, so well done.

You are like some of the rest of us in that you ask for a definition of antisocial behaviour. We have wrestled with that for a long time, but it is a wee bit like wrestling with smoke. You are absolutely right that the definition is not clear. Are four people who keep an elderly person up half the night by standing talking beside a fence engaging in antisocial behaviour? It has been kicked around for a long, long time, and we are still waiting for the proper definition. You are disappointed that antisocial behaviour orders are not gone, and so am I, because they are usually worn as a badge of honour and have been ineffective.

Everything that you have said is very good, but the one thing missing is how you intend to take the public with you in all this.

Ms Yiasouma:

This is a massive issue. On any given day, you only need to pick up a local or regional newspaper or to switch on the radio, particularly between 9.00 am and 10.30 am, to be aware of the public outcry about crime and, in particular, about the behaviour of young people and younger adults. Society has grown increasingly intolerant of our young people’s behaviour. I am one of the few who have gone on ‘The Nolan Show’, for example, on behalf of Include Youth. I have been pilloried, insulted and verbally abused because of some of the stances that I have taken, which we have reflected today.

We have to be brave. We need education that states what has to be done if people are to feel genuinely safer. Locking people up does not work, and intolerance of young people standing on street corners is not the way to go. We have to find other ways. We must have a public conversation about how certain types of behaviour are viewed and about what will reduce offending. What the public and some journalists seem to think will work will not work. We go into communities and ask people about their young people who are all over the media. Those communities are solution-focused. Although they want the behaviour to stop, they understand that those kids are from the most disadvantaged homes. There is nowhere for them to go. Why should they all be expected to go to youth clubs that offer only pool and are closed during the public holidays?

We must be brave and have a public conversation. The problem is that it is people like us, the liberal do-gooders, who come out and make a stand. We ask the Government, the police, the Youth Justice Agency and the Probation Board to stand up and say, “If you want to stop offending, this is what you have to do and this is what works.” It should be done community by community, if not street by street. They must take Nolan on.

The Chairperson:

Your submission states that the Give and Take scheme works with approximately 135 young people. Are those young people exclusively from broken homes? Do you feel that parents have any responsibility for their offspring?

Ms Yiasouma:

Mr McDevitt:

Are you saying that, essentially, there is a place for fixed penalty notices, but not in this Bill?

Ms Quinn:

Part of our disappointment in respect of those aspects of the Bill is that there have been a lot of conversations, in-depth research and gathering of experiences from young people, families and communities about what works and what does not. That will all be submitted to the review of youth justice in due course. Central to that will be how to prevent young people from getting into the justice system in the first place and how to divert them should they come into contact with it.

Mr Johnston, you and your team have been very tolerant. You have listened to everything said and picked up on all the issues, so it is over to you.

Mr Johnston:

I will start with the points made by the Probation Board, with the rider that I will try to pick up the points that are relevant to the Bill. I recognise that wider points were made and, if the Committee wants to come back to us with questions on any of those, we will answer them.

We welcome the Probation Board’s support for the thrust of the proposals on those Parts of the Bill. We recognise the board’s expertise and potential role, particularly in the context of conditional cautions and delivering services on the back of such cautions. There is, of course, specific provision in the Bill that would allow the Probation Board to do that.

We believe that the Bill’s provisions on sex offenders in breach of article 26 orders will be helpful and take us a certain distance, particularly for offenders who breach and who have no clear residence. However, we recognise that wider powers would be useful beyond this jurisdiction. That would require legislation in England and Wales, but we will raise with the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office the question of whether those changes can be accommodated in future legislation for England and Wales.

We are working separately on an EU decision on mutual recognition, and we will have more to say to the Committee about that next year. That will be helpful in enforcing things in other European countries, including the Republic of Ireland.

The Probation Board asked whether the provisions on warrants could be extended to custody orders and probation orders. That is related to our existing work on a single jurisdiction and it would not be appropriate to expand on that in this Bill until we have done some more consultation. However, that request has been noted and we will certainly consider it for future legislation. The Probation Board also expressed concern that, in giving alternatives to prosecution, full account should be taken of the views of victims. I can confirm that the police and/or the prosecution will consider the impact of an offence on a victim in considering the appropriateness of an alternative disposal. In particular, when considering a conditional caution, the views of the victim will be an integral part of any decision as to the appropriateness of attaching a reparative condition to that caution. We will provide guidance to the police and prosecutors on the consideration of the views of victims.

I will group the points that were made by NIACRO and Include Youth.

The Chairperson:

Will you elaborate on the budgeting and personnel commitments that will be needed for conditional cautions?

Mr Johnston:

The personnel commitments are containable within existing resources. We are prepared to introduce conditional cautions on a phased basis so that training can be carried out and all the other personnel things that need to be put in place are put in place. There will be an upfront cost, which is included in the £200,000 for changes to computer systems. The cases are going through the justice system anyway. We are not creating new offences; this is simply a different, and we hope a better, way of dealing with them.

NIACRO and Include Youth raised various concerns about fine default. I take the points that were made, but the introduction of fixed penalty notices should not, of itself, increase the number of fine defaults. The cases that we are targeting are those in which there would have been a fine from the court in any event. Indeed, as we are dealing with people who will have voluntarily accepted a penalty rather than having one imposed by the court, there may be an opportunity for a slightly lower level of default. In England and Wales, fixed penalties were perhaps embraced a little too enthusiastically. We are concerned that they should be used only in cases that would have been taken through the justice system already, and that their use does not creep into areas that are not currently criminalised. When fixed penalties are introduced, the police will regularly monitor their use to ensure that they are being used appropriately. NIACRO also made the point about offenders paying a fine by instalments and needing extra time to pay. I can confirm that those options are already available at the discretion of the court. If the Committee wants me to say something more about fine defaults in general, I can, but hopefully that addresses the specific issues that are associated with the Bill.

The majority of the rest of the time was spent discussing the prevention of offending and the contribution or lack of contribution of the proposals to that. It has to be recognised that the justice system will not be reformed in 108 clauses. I listened to NIACRO and Include Youth and agreed with a great deal of what they said. However, the issues raised are featuring in wider plans and wider reviews of the justice system.

A fine can often be an effective disposal. As a number of people acknowledged, it has the effect of encouraging people to catch themselves on and we welcome the recognition that fixed penalty notices could do the same. However, fixed penalty notices are only a part of a wider menu of options. One option is the ordinary discretion that police officers exercise, and a pilot to make sure that that is well-grounded in the police is being expanded throughout Northern Ireland. There is the option, in the first instance, to think about whether the offence is something to be referred to the PPS, gets a fixed penalty notice or whether discretion at a local level to deal with it can be used. That is one stage.

The conditional caution is another option on the menu, another part of the armoury. Various conditions can be attached that address some of the issues which have been discussed. We are looking seriously at a pilot scheme of specific conditions that could be attached under conditional cautions using the Inspire project and tapping into the community support services that are available to help women offenders. The Department, through the Probation Board, has been providing support to the Inspire project, and there are various other examples of funding that provide alternative disposals. We are also working at improving the identification of people with mental health issues who come into contact with the justice system and at diverting them to appropriate services. We are working on that with our health partners as well as with partners in the criminal justice system.

All those issues come together in the strategy on reducing offending that the Minister announced. That is where we can look particularly at wider social issues and breaking the cycle of offending. It is also where we can draw on the research to which Koulla referred, even though it was conducted by an organisation called the Northern Ireland Office, which we do not mention now. [Laughter.] We are looking at finding the solutions that best fit. That all leads me to say that I am not sure that we are too far apart. However, I ask the Committee not to expect too much from one piece of legislation.

Looking ahead, we will come every year for the foreseeable future with another justice Bill. Those will present opportunities to pick up on the results of the reducing offending strategy, the prisons review and the review of youth justice. The Committee may well want to come back on those points.

I want to address a few points that Include Youth raised. We spoke before about the equality impact assessment. The various major policies that led into the Bill were consulted upon. We screened them out in equality impact terms, but then did the equality impact assessment, in some ways, as a belt and braces exercise. We have been finalising our report on responses, and I hope that the Committee will have that within the next week. That will be our response to the various points made, including those by Include Youth, whose submission we received on 25 November. Once the Committee has seen our report on responses, we will publish it and it will be available to everyone.

There were concerns about inability to pay fixed penalty notices, which we appreciate. We have taken into account a number of considerations on that. To encourage payment, we set the penalty levels slightly lower than the equivalent court fines. We extended the time limit for paying to 28 days, and, although that might seem like a small extension, the Scottish experience has been that that has led to 12% more payments than in England and Wales, which have a limit of 21 days. If people cannot afford the fine and want the court to take on board an assessment of their means, they can decline to accept the penalty notice. In such circumstances, the PPS would consider court prosecution, and the court could take means into account in setting the fine level.

A query was raised about ensuring that the age of someone who is being given an alternative disposal is known and is accurate. In such cases, particularly for fixed penalty notices, we will look to people to produce identification so that details can be checked.

Ms Smiley:

Yes, we would rather have documentary evidence of their age. A person might not go about with that information on them, so they could go back to the station and confirmation could be obtained from a number of sources to ensure that the person is 18 or over and is eligible to receive one of those penalties. In exceptional circumstances, the penalty might be issued to someone who is under 18. That would be voided because it would be an unlawful use of the powers, so the individual would not be required to make payment.

Mr Johnston:

Mr McDevitt:

Sir Reg Empey:

Part of the justice system deals with alternatives to prosecution. However, the justice system and prosecution system are not only about punishment but about ensuring that we reform the character of the individual or, as was mentioned earlier, make him a good citizen. What part of Part 6 is about making a person a good citizen?

Mr Johnston:

We must look at the wider context in which it is set. The Justice Bill is one key goal of the addendum to the Programme for Government that the Department took through the Assembly, but it is only one key goal. There are other issues, for example, the reducing offending initiative, in which those questions of citizenship will be factored in to a much greater extent.

Mr O’Dowd:

It is interesting that you mention it. To my mind, this chapter should be held. It fits in neatly with the alternative methods of dealing with offenders. I agree that we need to take substantial numbers of people out of the justice system and ensure that fewer people go through it, both for financial reasons and so that people do not get criminal records at a very young age that stay with them. I wonder whether we have put the cart before the horse. Should we not wait for the other strategy and see what comes out of that discussion? We could then marry them instead of going ahead with this.

Mr Johnston:

My fear is that we could end up waiting for that discussion and then the next one and the one after that. The provisions, particularly those on fixed penalty notices, have been very firmly called for by, among others, the Policing Board. They represent a way of dealing effectively and efficiently with minor crime, particularly with first-time and non-habitual offenders. They provide a way of addressing some of the clogging up of the justice system with cases that really do not need to be there. We can certainly think about how the powers could be tweaked and look at what guidance will be issued, but this is a good start to make. We can then address all the other questions about alternatives to prosecution, diversion and getting the right solution for the right problem.

Mr O’Dowd:

We can do all that, but, in the meantime, chapter 6 will be on the statute books and the police will be running around giving out fixed penalty notices in the wrong circumstances.

Mr Johnston:

At the moment, 1,000 people, including young adults, are going through the courts each year and getting fines that that will likely result in a criminal record. Through fixed penalty notices, we offer the opportunity for that sort of minor, first-time offending to be dealt with by a short, sharp shock that has no lasting effects. It is useful that we do that now as a starter, and we can then consider what other measures might be useful.

The Chairperson:

That is it. We have exhausted the list. Mr Johnston, I thank you and your team very much for coming today.

COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE

OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard)

Justice Bill: Parts 5 and 6

9 December 2010

Members present for all or part of the proceedings:

Witnesses:

The Chairperson (Lord Morrow):

Mr Gareth Johnston (Department of Justice):

The Chairperson:

Mr Tom Haire (Department of Justice):

The Chairperson:

Mr O’Dowd:

The Chairperson:

Mr O’Dowd:

Mr Haire:

Mr O’Dowd:

The Chairperson:

Ms Janice Smiley (Department of Justice):

The Chairperson:

Mr McCartney:

Ms Smiley:

Mr McCartney:

Ms Smiley:

Ms Ní Chuilín:

Ms Smiley:

The Chairperson:

Mr Brian McCaughey (Probation Board Northern Ireland):

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

Mr McDevitt:

Mr McCaughey:

Ms Louise Cooper (Probation Board for Northern Ireland):

Mr McDevitt:

Ms Cooper:

Mr McCaughey:

Mr McDevitt:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Ms Cooper:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCartney:

Ms Cooper:

Mr McCartney:

Ms Cooper:

Mr McCartney:

Mr McCaughey:

Mr O’Dowd:

Mr McCaughey:

Mr O’Dowd:

Mr McCaughey:

Mr O’Dowd:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr McCaughey:

Ms Cooper:

Lord Browne:

Mr Hugh Hamill (Probation Board for Northern Ireland):

Lord Browne:

Mr Hamill:

Sir Reg Empey:

Mr McCaughey:

Sir Reg Empey:

Mr McCaughey:

The Chairperson:

Mr Pat Conway (Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders):

Mr David Weir (Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders):

Mr Conway:

The Chairperson:

Mr Conway:

The Chairperson:

Mr D Weir:

The Chairperson:

OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)