Soaring prison populations and high reoffending rates have become unwanted but unavoidable features for which Scotland’s criminal justice system is widely recognised.

But a characteristic that has attracted the sharpest condemnation is the regularity with which young people get caught in the revolving door of the justice system.

It is a problem that has engulfed other parts of the UK – it was not that long ago that a conversation on youth justice could be had without mention of the “respect agenda” or the ill-fated Asbo.

But despite its problems, aspects of Scotland’s approach to youth offending have been widely revered and in particular the children’s hearing system has received much praise.

The system sees panels of local volunteers meet with children who have committed offences to try and find solutions and is based on a child’s “needs, not deeds” and treats all youngsters as vulnerable.

Many experts in the field acknowledge that things have progressed in terms of supporting youngsters, however, there is still major concern that too many teenagers, mainly those aged between 16 and 18, find themselves in the adult court system.

That is a situation Michael, who grew up in East Kilbride, is familiar with. He served two sentences at the young offenders institution at Polmont, which is home to around 500 young men aged between 16 to 21, many of whom are there after getting caught up in Scotland’s notorious knife-crime culture.

“Certainly when I was younger the authorities, I think, were too quick to send young guys down the criminal justice path,” Michael, who in now in his early 30s and lives and works with vulnerable teenagers in south London, said.

He was sent to Polmont for six months for assault at the age of 17 and within less than a year of his release was returned for the offence of arson.

He said: “My situation was almost identical to many others – I got caught up with a gang when I was around 14 and like many young guys wanted to impress my peers. You start off with minor crimes and then to keep impressing your friends you have to up the ante a bit and that’s very much how it worked out for me and my cycle of offending continually got worse and more serious.

“Certainly one of the biggest problems with sending kids to prisons is that they are very difficult to deal with. If you take a troubled 16 year old and put him in a place full of other troubled kids, it is very difficult to help him and in most cases, you probably make it worse.

“Of course some [young offenders] should be sent away, but I think it should be the minority.

Sending a teenager to the young offenders’ should be the exception, not the norm.” He added: “The approach in Scotland of trying to intervene early and get them away from the criminal justice route is better. It is something authorities in England are trying to do more of and I think it can only bring positives.

“If you get a young guy who has got into a bit of trouble with gangs, is already into alcohol, drugs or whatever, and is breaking the law, he will probably find it a lot more challenging being made to talk about his feelings or his problems to a group of adults than he would being sent to Polmont for a couple of months.

If you send him to Polmont, he’s mixing with people with similar problems, and the things that led him to breaking the law in the first place get worse.” In October, Brigadier Hugh Monro, Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, published his second annual report and concluded there are still “far too many young people” in jail.

Speaking to Holyrood, he said the country needs to become better at diverting vulnerable youngsters from criminality.

He said: “I think the youth agenda is of great importance – if we can get that right we can make significant progress because we have a situation in Scotland that once you’ve got someone into the prison system, it is much more difficult to get them out.

“I think that is why the prevention agenda is so important. In the long run, I think it is a much more cost-effective way of running a society but also you keep people who shouldn’t be going to prison out of prison and that must be right.

“We have to look at the culture from which so many youngsters in the system come from – for example, why are youngsters excluded from school in the numbers they are? In a way, I feel this is a moral exclusion from society and once you go down that road, it is very difficult to get you back into society and that is where you want everyone, you want everyone on the same team trying to improve themselves, get a job or whatever it is and I know that is difficult but once you have been excluded from an early age it is very difficult to get you back in again.

“I know that may not seem to be directly related to prison numbers – but I believe it is one of the many underlying issues that see so many people go on to get up in this criminal justice system.” Central to youth justice policy is a multipartner approach that tries to see all youngsters caught up in the system viewed as a victim.

It is the children’s Hearing system that is the most unique tool used in Scotland. It was established in 1971 and although it has been quoted around the world as a shining example, there are still critics.

The system sees volunteers, currently there are around 2500 in Scotland, try to help youngsters who are victims of abuse, children who fail to attend school, those whose parents are having difficulty looking after them and youngsters who commit offences. The panel of three volunteers discuss solutions with the child and other important people in their life.

Professor Ross Deuchar, of the University of the West of Scotland, has studied youth justice and crime and authored the book Gangs, Marginalised Youth and Social Capital. During his work, he has spoken to a number of youth offenders and their families.

He said: “The situation in Scotland is a lot stronger because of the existence of the Children’s Hearing system, compared to what you might find in the rest of the UK.

“But what quite often happens is you will have an offender and their family being supported, but as soon as the individual turns 18, the help stops.

“I spoke to one young mother whose son had been sent to prison after various communitybased sanctions like curfews and so on. The family had been receiving support but then when he turned 18 that went and it was very difficult for the family. That boy ended up in the adult system and at that stage it becomes a lot more difficult for everyone involved.

“I’ve been to Polmont and spoken to inmates, in some cases, you’re talking to 16 and 17 year olds that have been in and out four times already and sometimes you can’t help but think the system is letting us down because these young guys are obviously in a cycle of crime.

When you have such an effective hearing system, it has to be used over the adult criminal justice system at every opportunity.” He added: “From speaking to young people, one of the best things I’ve come across is the Intensive Support and Monitoring Services programme. Individuals can be given a community-based sanction like a curfew or being tagged but at the same time are given intensive support in terms of workshops or a 24- hour phone line that the families can call if they need support. Some of the participants were also given mentors who would talk to them and try to address their behaviour and this type of thing seemed to have a very positive effect.” In recent years the Children’s Hearing system has been the subject of major reform, largely because of fears it did not comply with human rights legislation.

As part of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) was set up last year, and part of its remit is to recruit, train, monitor and support panel members. It has so far been operating in a shadow capacity and is due to take on its full functions in September.

The Scottish Government was keen to tackle a perception that standards of training and decision making were too variable across the country. But the reforms were dealt a blow last month when Bernadette Monaghan was suspended as national convener of CHS. The Government has so far declined to explain the reason.

It comes at a time when tensions are said to be rising amongst the staff and volunteers involved, mainly over the geographical make-up of proposed panel support teams. It has also been claimed some involved think new approaches are not suitable for voluntary groups, are too bureaucratic and that the system is becoming too legalistic.

The SNP, in 2009 during its first term of government, proposed major reforms to the hearings system and was met with fierce resistance when it proposed changes to how local panels carry out training and recruitment.

This led to some members threatening to resign and it is hoped the recent reforms will be met with more consensus.

And despite concern over changes to the management of the system nationally, local groups across the country have been recording varying levels of success. Indeed crime committed by young people across the country fell by almost 19 per cent over the last year, according to annual Scottish Policing Performance Framework figures.

In Glasgow, youth crime has decreased every year since 2006/07 and last year saw the single largest fall in referrals to the Children’s Reporter.

In the last year there was a 32 per cent reduction in the number of offences being committed with the number of offenders being referred to the Children’s Panel falling by 26 per cent.

Councillor Matthew Kerr, the council’s executive member for social care, said: “The figures for last year alone are undoubtedly impressive in themselves but when you take a long-term view, you see that youth offending has dropped by more than 50 per cent in five years. This improvement in youth offending is a remarkable achievement and I have only the highest praise for the work of our Youth Justice Services and their partners.” One factor being attributed for the drop in offending has been the implementation of Early and Effective Intervention Groups, which are multi-agency groups which meet in local areas to discuss the most recent young people to have come to the attention of police.

This can mean involving parents and carers, but can also lead to the person becoming involved in a range of interventions such as sport or youth work activities via Glasgow Life, a restorative justice programme.

Superintendent Grant Manders, the Strathclyde Police lead on Youth Justice, said: “I think that better partnership working between agencies and new approaches such as Early and Effective Intervention have played their part in this success, but we can’t be complacent.” Sean McKendrick, head of Glasgow City Council’s Youth Justice Strategy Group, added: “By diverting a number of low-risk children away from formal processes such as the Children’s Hearing system, we can devote more time to those children who need our input the most. Those who do require statutory measures are very likely to have a number of difficulties in their lives that they can receive effective assistance for.

“We fully understand that youth crime causes concern within communities and there is no doubt that some offenders do need to be in secure care or custody. But our experience, backed by extensive research, shows that being in custody does not create the outcomes that communities want. Managing a young offender in the community can prove to be far more effective in the long run.” In September last year a new national strategy to tackle youth offending was launched. The programme sees minor offenders under 18 offered support to tackle their behaviour as an alternative to prosecution.

The Whole Systems Approach (WSA) involves police, prosecutors, social workers and a large number of other support services.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the aim was to ensure that only those charged with serious or violent crime would be dealt with through the courts or Children’s Hearing system.

Others accused of minor law-breaking will undergo a multiagency screening process to determine what support is needed to address their behaviour and prevent reoffending.

The strategy calls for the greater use of restorative justice, where the offender is encouraged to apologise for their crime, and instead of formal prosecution, an immediate community service alternative can be sanctioned.

It follows a successful pilot in Aberdeen which has shown significant cost savings and seen a reduction in youth crime.

Indeed figures at the end of last year showed the number of youths who committed crime there had fallen by 23 per cent and the number of cases being referred to the Children’s Reporter during the pilot, which started in February 2010, had decreased by 40 per cent.

The Aberdeen Youth Justice Development Programme pilot, which is a partnership between agencies including the local authority and voluntary sector, focuses on early and sustained intervention for young people.

The report said only 254 children were referred to the Aberdeen City Children’s Reporter compared to 425 the previous year.

The results from some regions are being greeted by levels of optimism, but it is clear that it will take time before youth justice policies start to yield success and contribute to a Scotland-wide improvement.

The Scottish Government is quick to point out that recorded crime is at a 35-year low. But until issues like prison overcrowding and reoffending start to improve, it may take many more years until it wins the public’s faith in the criminal justice system.