David Lammy will set out plans on Monday to cut the number of children kept in jail while they await trial by a quarter, in a sweeping overhaul of youth justice rules that also targets childhood criminal records and exploitation.
The justice secretary said prison can do lasting damage to children’s lives, and the measures will include an extra £15m a year for teams working with youngsters judged to be at risk of offending. Lammy is promising to cut the use of custodial remand for under-18s by 25% by the end of the parliament, while officials say wider community sentences and the remand change should together reduce the number of young people in prison by 20%.
The white paper, to be published on Monday, could also end lifelong criminal records for under-18s, while the Ministry of Justice will consult on fining parents and even sending them to jail if they fail to keep their children away from crime. Judges will be allowed to offer a broader range of community sentences, and the department will pilot youth intervention courts, where judges and support workers would draw up individual plans for young people.
Lammy cast the overhaul as both personal and practical. He said he grew up in Tottenham in the 1980s, and that his biggest fear then was ending up in prison. “That may sound irrational, but in truth it was the fate of so many young Black boys like me,” he said. “You saw it happen slowly at first. People missed school, got into petty trouble, started hanging around with the wrong crowd. No one stepped in to pull them back. For us, going to jail didn’t feel shocking or distant. It felt almost inevitable.”
He added that he could have followed the same path, but won a scholarship to a state boarding school that gave him “the route out that others never had.” Lammy also said: “I often think: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Even today, that line between a child who thrives and a child whose life falls apart is often painfully thin.”
The move comes as the government tries to reshape how the system deals with children who offend. The white paper is part of an overhaul of youth justice rules that also covers custodial remand, short sentences for under-18s and the way childhood convictions appear on criminal records. Lammy said the ministry will review those records because “a mistake made at 13 should not become a life sentence of c” — a remark that reflects a view he set out in 2017, when he criticised lifelong disclosure of childhood criminal records in his review into Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the justice system.
There is still a hard line in the plans. Lammy said custody will remain necessary for the most serious offences to protect the public, but argued that short spells inside can push vulnerable children deeper into violence and criminal influence. He is also promising a new offence of child criminal exploitation, which would target adults who encourage children to commit crimes.
The biggest question now is how far the reforms can go in practice. Lammy wants to end custodial remand for under-18s altogether, but the immediate pledge is narrower: a 25% cut by the end of the parliament, backed by more community sentences, new intervention courts and extra spending to try to stop children entering the system in the first place.
