National concern over the number of teenagers locked up while awaiting trial in Bradford has led to the city being selected to pilot a new youth justice scheme.

Magistrates in Bradford are remanding 50 per cent more youngsters to prison than the national average.

Boys as young as 15 are routinely being sent to the high-security Doncaster Jail for several months while waiting for their cases to come up. In 1997, nine per cent of youngsters (30 individuals) were remanded in custody compared with six per cent in other areas. (This year, though, the rate has fallen to six per cent in Bradford.) In addition, figures show youngsters in Bradford are much more likely to be remanded to local authority care than in other areas.

In 1997, a quarter of all teenagers to come before the youth courts were remanded to a local authority placement (secure unit or foster home) compared with four per cent in other areas, although the gap has narrowed in 1998.

NACRO - the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders - has selected Bradford to try out its new Bail Support Programme because of the city's record of high levels of remands.

A NACRO spokesman said Bradford was selected for one of four schemes to be implemented across the country owing to its high custody levels. He said the aim of the two-year-scheme was to keep people out of prison. "Keeping someone in prison costs £416 per week and that is a lot of money. We think it would be more humane if they were kept on bail," he added.

The Lottery-funded NACRO scheme will start in the Spring, giving magistrates an alternative. Instead of youngsters awaiting trial on remand at Doncaster high security prison, or in a local authority placement, they could be referred to the Bail Support Programme, enabling them to live at home.

They would receive support from four project workers and volunteers under the new scheme. The aim of the Bail Support Programme will be to make sure defendants awaiting trial or sentence return safely to court and do not commit further crimes while out on bail.

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