An invisible minority
Care leavers are an invisible minority within the Criminal Justice System. Legislation, including the Children Act 1989 and Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, has made few significant improvements in outcomes for these care leavers – the number engaged with the Criminal Justice System has remained constant across the last decade, according to data produced by the Social Exclusion Unit in 2002.
Indeed, it would be safe to state that the issues and over representation of this group in criminal justice settings was an issue long before 2002. Through our work we meet many care leavers who left care before the Children Act 1989 and who are still stuck in the system. Astoundingly, and shamefully, the issue of why has not been explored within the sector; despite the situation ruining lives, and costing the state more in resources.
When we started this work in 2010 we were one of a few organisation seeking to find answers, and taking a user led focus to the problem – subverting traditional hierarchical methods of top down and command and control prevalent in the Criminal Justice System today. Although the CJS project work officially ended in 2023 we continue to promote the issue and support all aspects of the criminal justice system.
Here are links to some of our findings.
In 2024 we published the first traunch of a series of interviews with care leavers and professionals with experience of the criminal justice system. https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/the-care-leavers-association-and-criminal-justice-a-decade-of-activism/
In 2023 we published a series of policy briefings outlining our learning from the previous 10 years https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/policy-briefings/
In 2015 we released a report “Effectively Abandoned” based on our work to that point in time. CJS Report 2019 edit
In 2019 we published recommendations based on a series of policy roundtables accross the country https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/cjs-roundtables/
Between 2015 and 2020 we supported care leavers in the community through the Clear Approach CJS program. Read about the program here https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/clear-approach/ You can download our Evaluation report for the Clear Approach project here Clear Approach Evaluation Report
Between 2012 and 2020 we helped establish Peer Support groups in 16 prisons. You can read about our group in HMP Risley https://www.careleavers.com/what-we-do/criminal-justice-project/hmp-risley/
In 2013 we published our first set of recommendations based on a multi agency seminar. Its now out of date but gives a good picture of some of the structural problems, some of which still need to be addressed.