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A BRAND NEW initiative, being tested in Ireland for the first time, is aiming to keep the most prolific young offenders at home in their communities, rather than sent to Oberstown Detention Centre.
When young people are charged before the courts, a judge can rule whether or not they remain in the country’s only centre for young offenders near Man O’War, north county Dublin.
Using this scheme, which has been used for over 30 years in the US and Europe, young people will embark on an intensive therapy programme along with their families designed to reintegrate them into their communities and prevent them from re-offending.
This programme will be used for young people who’ve engaged in prolific offending, as a recent incident barely two weeks ago in Oberstown demonstrates.
In this case, two young people escaped from Oberstown detention centre. Three staff were injured, including the centre’s director Pat Bergin, during the escape.
Three youths assaulted staff members before using an angle grinder to cut through the perimeter fence and escape, before being later apprehended.
Bergin said the incident – which happened on the same day as an event called Oberstown: Building the Future was held – was a “stark reminder of the constant challenges an environment like Oberstown presents us with”.
Despite the promised “sea-change” in how Ireland deals with young offenders, sources at Oberstown say talk of improvement and change rings hollow.
This week, the new initiative was rolled out that will aim to ensure young offenders on bail return home and receive the support they need, rather than be detained in Oberstown while awaiting trial.
Ireland’s first Bail Supervision Scheme (BSS) for young people is all about keeping them out of detention centres and at home, in school, at work and out of trouble with the law.
As well as that, an end goal of the programme is to make communities safer.
The scheme will be run by charity Extern for two years, and has the capacity to cater for 25 young people aged between 12 and 17 each year.
How it will work
Before this scheme, a young person denied bail, found to have breached bail, or incurred new charges while on bail would secure a one way ticket to Oberstown Children Detention Campus.
Rather than keeping them in custody until the court date, staff at Oberstown can refer them to the BSS scheme to see if they’re suitable for the form of treatment used on the programme – called ‘Multisystemic Therapy’ (MST).
This form of therapy is an intensive, round-the-clock form of treatment where therapists work closely with families to try to re-integrate the young person into their community, and get them back to education.
Leslie Ann Scott, Assistant Director of Young People and Families at Extern, told TheJournal.ie that a large number of young offenders would be eligible.
“Children who have a record of prolific offending in things like theft and aggressive behaviour – they would be appropriate,” she said.
Young offenders accused of sexual crimes, or have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, however, would not be eligible.
Scott said that the main thing to ensure the young person receives treatment is having “mother, father, aunt, uncle, foster carer or some guardian” at home who is willing to give the scheme a go.
After establishing if the young person is suitable for MST, a presentation will be made to court and the judge will make a final decision.
The young person will then receive this MST treatment in their own community, with 24/7 support available. Each participant will be on the programme for three to five months.
So what is MST?
Originating in the US more than 30 years ago, MST is described as an intensive family and community-based treatment programme.
Extern are the only organisation licensed to carry out this therapy in Ireland, and have operated similar schemes in Northern Ireland.
Scott explained how it works:
Each family has a dedicated MST therapist. They engage on a rigorous programme of behaviour modification, parenting training and coping strategies. They work with the young people on learning the consequences of their behaviour. They make small changes like ensuring curfews are followed through.
Other supports on offer include cognitive behavioural therapy, where the therapist works with the young person to understand their difficulties and work on a practical approach to change their behaviour.
Scott said that positive reinforcements of the correct way to act are made at home, instead of in a detention centre, showing young people the benefits of making these changes within their usual surroundings.
“The key to all this is positive community engagement,” she said. “It’s always a priority to enter them into education.
There’s a significant number of young people who tend to be out of school for a significant amount of time.
To support the care-giver trying to prevent the young person from re-offending and getting in trouble with the gardaí again, MST therapists are available 24/7.
“Any time a parent needs someone,” Scott said, “they can lift the phone and speak to a therapist”.
The therapist doesn’t visit the home on a 9-5 Monday-Friday basis. They will routinely visit on weekends and evenings to support the family and young person and check how things are going.
The treatment only lasts a maximum of five months because “any positive changes made by then won’t be improved upon”.
If the scheme achieves its aims of reducing the number of young people on remand, getting them back into education and improving their family life, Extern hopes to expand its MST offering to young people the first time they appear before a judge, rather than the second or third time.
Will it work?
In May, a total of 46 young people were residents of Oberstown. The vast majority were aged from 16 to 18-years old.
Of these, 16 young people were on remand and, in theory, could have been considered for MST.
When the system is put into effect and works, Scott says, everyone from Oberstown staff, families involved and local communities will benefit.
“It’s important to remember that these are prolific offenders,” she said. “If the young people themselves refuse to cooperate with the programme, it can still go ahead once the parents are on board.”
Scott said that this was a method proven to work in other jurisdictions.
It has been in operation for many years in the UK for example, and has proven to be effective at keeping young people out of jail and in education.
The UK’s Brandon Centre conducted a study of the practice in 2011 and found that MST resulted in significant reductions in young people offending compared to usual services, significant improvements in family relationship and more cost-effective than other services.
Scott added that Extern won a tender from the government to offer this service, having proposed MST as the most effective way to help young people on remand stay at home without reoffending.
“This is only a pilot, so we will be under a great deal of scrutiny,” she said. “Tusla, the gardaí and the Irish Youth Justice Service will all be evaluating how we’re getting on.
We need to make sure we’re sticking to what we promised.
She explained that Extern had already done significant work with young people using MST in Northern Ireland and, despite this being the first time it has been tried in Ireland, they are confident that this will work.
This is an intervention from a social context and also from an offending context. We act as an alternative to a judge to offer young people a chance away from a life of offending. We really believe that through this programme, we can make communities safer.
With reporting from Paul Hosford
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Should be in that place for the rest of their lives instead of going back into towns and villages, terrorising shop keepers and home owners.
@Negan: all for the want of a wooden spoon.
@Brendan Hughes: True, many years ago a local “Bad Boy” with a history of burglary broke in to the wrong house. One of the mad sons began to assault this criminal every time he saw him. After months of looking over his shoulder he changed his ways. I’d personally prefer to bring back the lash on the bare back and fuk this shyte of dancing around the problem.
Why not provide the therapy/counselling in prison and save the rest of us from being exposed to them?
Are the innocent victims going to be compensated by this minister
@Chris Mcdonnell: are the victims going to get the care and attention they may need after they are robbed or beaten and terrorised by some of these ” lost souls “
Their parents should have to pay something towards it and if on the dole a percentage of it. If they re-offend. The dole should go to the victim.
How is it appropriate to have aggressive youngsters considered suitable for this program. These kids are rarely aggressive with people their own age instead they like to intimidate elderly and vulnerable people. I think country has a problem with not keeping offenders detained for long enough and here we have an active program of release for prolific offenders . Where’s the logic in all this ??
@Catherine Sims: drugs is there main crime. seems normal nowadays,,
These delightful young members of our society are college educations, Holidays and nice cars for the the families of defence lawyers all over the country for the next 20/30 years via free legal aid,if they are inside they can’t re-offend.hence the let them home plan.
This is just more airy fairy BS. When these young thugs come from a family dynasty of criminality no amount of councilling, therapy or touchy feely drivel is going to achieve anything other than make those running the programme feel better about themselves. These guys will be laughing at this entire exercise. They only understand two things, strenght and weakness. Those stronger are to be feared and respected. And weakness is to be exploited. And to them this entire dog and pony show will be the state being weak.
This has all the hallmarks of Thatchers “Care in the Community” scheme, which was nothing else than an excuse to cut funding to essential publicservices.
Have known elderly people who were terrorised by the teenage and younger offspring of parents in the same estate.The thugs often broke windows , robbed their neighbours ,many elderly,sometimes burned their bins to witness and enjoy the arrival of The fire brigade.No recompense or court action ensued.It was absolute intimidation and a dare to their Victims to pursue legal action and /or redress.Some of the miscreants matured,moved on, but most got away with making life miserable for the law abiding residents.Where were the Gardai? Chasing older criminals and under pressure.
So, when one of these pillars of the community has, say upwards of 50 previous convictions, and gets caught again, an occupation hazard one would imagine, this new initiative will make it easier to return them to their community where they will be able to return to a life of crime and reckless abandon.
What feckless ejit dreamt this up in an afternoon when the boss was on holidays, has anyone actually read this or seriously thought it through. Where are all these additional therapists who are going to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
I’m all for a carrot and stick approach but someone has this the wrong way around, this is like rewarding the worst young offenders to offend again, but instead of increasing their sentence they get to go home and see a therapist for 3 – 5 months maximum. What could possibly go wrong…???
No jail space=no jail time. Now it’s official.
As much as I agree that parents need to be more involved and given tools to deal with them I can’t see how this would be successful. Most young people who are criminals usually have a group of mates involved in the same stuff from the same locality. They will still be around them. Secondly the only way to change a kids/anybodys behaviour is if THEY want to change, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped and lastly even if they want to sort themselves out and start afresh how can they whilst living in an area that people know their past, this is Ireland, it’s incredibly small and if you f*** up people always remember!!
Probably cheaper to put them up in The Shelbourne….then again probably not as comfortable as “prison”?!!
Keeping them in thier community sounds great for them, but in some instances not for victims of thier crimes. Who will balance needs of both?
Funny article . It belongs in the comedy section at the library . It really does .
It’s an interesting idea, worth exploring. The horsesh~t comments above are more of the same tried and failed “solutions”. When will the hang em and flog em brigade realize they’re living back in the 19th century
@Chad Chad: I was wondering if anyone would have a sane, compassionate response. Thanks for restoring some of my faith.
@Chad Chad: Having lived the majority of their lives in the 20th century,contributing positively to their community,most on medium to low income, the Victims of these young tearaways have spent their last years in 21st century,living in fear of the next break in, of the next violation of their right to live in peace,having never received an apology from their persecutors.Yes they did receive the official letter of sympathy from their local Garda station.
I was interested in the negativity from most commentators, which I would have agreed with initially, but there are circumstances where it could help a young person with the help and support of concerned parents or family members so the more I read about it the more I think it might help in some circumstances but fully accept that in others it is inappropriate and people (parents and kids) need to be held responsible for their actions
A lot of these out of control young criminals were allowed to run wild and do whatever they liked and got away with it. In New York they adopted a zero tolerance approach . In the past I knew of young offenders who were identified early, the local Garda worked with the parents to curb their behaviour while they were still quite young , and by building up trust many a parent came to thank the local Garda for putting their son on the straight and narrow . Some of these juveniles do come from criminal families but others get into bad company and destroy their futures and cause major disruption to the community and their families.
Absolute disgrace. Keep the little gouriers locked up.
More hug a thug crap . Should be in a prison ,as they were previously ie St Patricks . But an idiot retired judge and a government that wants to save money ,said shut it and house the 6ft violent criminal Kids in an unsuitable environment of oberstown .
Good
MST worked well in Northern Ireland until funding was withdrawn a couple of years ago. Inclusive and realistic solutions that support young people and their families.
Utterly disgusting, Zappone should be ashamed, but then again, liberal idiots have no shame
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