When they were not in school, they tended to learn the ways of the street. My third observation has greater relevance to our discussion. If young offenders are asked about their experience of the criminal justice system, they say, almost invariably, that what happened the first time that they were in trouble set the pattern for their offending career. Most of them went to court expecting something serious to happen, only to receive a sentence that was less severe than expected, less relevant to their circumstances and less likely to modify their behaviour. We are trying to deal with that problem.
Young offenders learn to play the system.
They learn what is likely to happen to them. They learn dodges from their legal representatives, and ways of dealing with their predicament. Unfortunately, practical considerations prevent us from accepting the amendment. The key difficulty is that we do not receive complete information about juvenile convictions from our EU partners. Member for Ryedale gave a couple of good examples of that.