Changing Youth Justice

Abstract

This article contends that the depoliticisation of its knowledge base, and greater openness to alternative perspectives on the part of policy makers, could only benefit the development of the youth justice system in England and Wales. It argues that an open-minded reappraisal of ‘welfarism’ and ‘progressive minimalism’, rejected by New Labour on essentially ideological grounds, could offer solutions to some of the problems presently confronting the Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), the Juvenile Secure Estate, and the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB).