Comment: wasted youth

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The idea is that the centres would provide wrap-around care including schooling, job training, family support and healthcare to offenders under 18, as well as secure units to hold those serving custodial sentences. The first pilot institution is proposed for east London.

The new plans are part of an effort by the children's secretary, Ed Balls, to move the youth justice system away from punishment and towards welfare. Certainly such young offenders need a range of support as well as punishment, and the present solution - locking them up in young offender institutions together with older criminals - is ineffective at stopping them going back to crime. It is also very expensive, at an average cost of £45,000 a year per place.

But the Government's record on youth crime does not inspire confidence. Despite faster sentencing for youth offenders being a key pledge in 1997, and a major shake-up of the youth justice system in 1999, a recent report found that levels of youth offending have stayed much the same. The new "academies" are in part an admission that the previous reforms, which brought police, schools and social workers together in youth offending teams, have failed to tackle the problem.

If the new institutions can help these troubled young people, that will be a positive development. But the public will want reassurance that the youth justice system can succeed in reducing crime as well as offering a helping hand.