Magistrates 'ignore' expert view

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Many magistrates tend to believe they "know best" and ignore the advice of youth crime experts, research suggests.

The JPs often base their decisions on little more than stereotypes when sentencing, says the report from the Economic and Social Research Council.

Some young offenders also admitted not always telling the truth to the courts because they feared harsher sentences.

The research was based on 80 interviews with young criminals and six months of observing court hearings.

It found that magistrates tended to view reports written by youth teams on child offenders as biased towards the criminal, because they so rarely recommended jail.

Risk assessments

Report author Dr Jo Phoenix, of Bath University, said: "The findings of this research suggest that decisions and recommendations are based on little more than stereotypes and that the engagement of young people is not necessarily in their own interests."

Most JPs told Dr Phoenix that they did not find risk assessments produced by youth workers useful.

Instead, they preferred to look at an offender's criminal record, family background and make their own observations in an attempt to predict how likely a youth was to reoffend.

Magistrates said they tended to use their own common sense and observations in court, claiming to be able to distinguish which "type" of lawbreaker each child was.