Recommendation 135

We heard about the transition from Youth Offending Services to the adult Probation Service. Currently, “Youth Offending Services stop supervision at 18, and there is effectively a cliff edge where children go from quite a personalised service, with speech and language, into the adult provision world”. He caveated that, in specific circumstances, “Youth Offending Teams can actually hold on to people beyond their 18th birthday if they feel that it is in their interest, at least to allow them to complete their sentence”—which may smooth the cliff edge in certain individual cases. 254