Referral Orders were introduced as a sentence in April 2002. A referral order is the most common outcome received by young people appearing in a youth court for the first time and pleading guilty. The exception might be if the offence is very serious, where custody might be considered, or very minor, where a fine or an absolute discharge might be considered.

A court makes a Referral Order but a Referral Order Panel decides the work that is carried out within the order. This is a panel made up of trained community volunteers, who meet with the young person and a worker from the Youth Offending Team to decide what work needs to be done to put things right for the young person and their victim. The victim is normally invited to attend the panel. They may attend in person or have their views represented by a victims officer.

For more details see the separate section on victim work or the links to the youth justice board web pages on the right hand side of this screen.