Offender Management: Checkpoint Programme

Lord Elton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I spent a great deal of what I used to regard as my middle age, and now regard as my youth, addressing the problem of keeping children out of crime. I am delighted to support and applaud the Checkpoint scheme and many like it which address the problem of people who have become criminals. It has seemed to me increasingly lunatic throughout my career that we spend so much on that and relatively so little on stopping people becoming criminals, which is far cheaper and more effective.

Of young people, I will say one or two things. First, most of them come into the world imbued with huge enthusiasm, energy and inquisitiveness that need to be channelled and directed. If they are not and find no release of their own, the young people turn to desperate actions, from stealing cars and driving away, to burglary or arson—you name it—or something else for a kick and a thrill. The channelling idea of this energy was highlighted in my career when I was commanding a Territorial Army squadron and two rather nondescript youths came into the drill hall, plainly bent on having a good laugh and disturbing things. We actually got them interested, and within two years they were the two best junior NCOs that I had ever had—because we got that energy, this vital quality that practically every human being has which can be used to make them creative, beneficial and lovely people.

The second thing that was brought home to me was during my middle years as a Minister when I spent six months in the Department of Health. I was introduced to a scheme in which children who had been convicted of crimes were referred to an Outward Bound course, where they were under the care of an adult on a ratio of one adult to two children all the waking hours of every day for a considerable period. It became abundantly clear that a considerable number of those children had encountered on that course for the first time in their 15 years or more of life an adult who actually cared about what happened to them, day by day and in the end. In other words, they were starved of love.

It is an elementary fact of human nature. My friend the right reverend Prelate will confirm that the essence of creation is love. We are too hesitant to talk about it, because the word has so many different meanings, but good parental and spiritual love is the essence of good behaviour. Without it, people fail to mature into the people they are meant to be. With it, they flourish, they do not commit crimes and we save a huge amount of money thereby.