Abstract
The administration of justice can become an arid procedural concern when practitioners lose sight of purpose. This article focuses on the purposes of the youth justice provisions of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. After traversing New Zealand’s historical responses to children who offend and contrasting the conceptual underpinnings of those approaches with current legislation, the article identifies the three key aims of youth justice reform which took place during the late 1980s – providing due process guarantees; finding alternatives to enmeshing young people and their families in the formal criminal justice system; and promoting culturally respectful processes. The author argues that almost all of the procedures of the legislation link to one or other of these aims and by understanding these linkages, all youth justice practitioners – judges, legal advocates, coordinators, social workers, police and community service providers – can ensure the intentions of the law are not lost in the exigencies of the day-to-day activity. The article concludes by proposing that all youth justice practitioners, in addition to their role-specific functions, have a collective responsibility to ensure the mandate of the law is given effect.
Highlights
It is the legal scheme for responding to instances where children or young persons break the law and is a powerful instrument in reducing chances that young people will develop offending careers into adulthood
Literature of the period emphasised the importance of minimising the involvement of children and young persons with the formal criminal justice system, which had limited options for responding and often resulted in the congregation of problematic young people in programmes that appeared to make things worse rather than better, because of the associations they formed and the tendency for them to develop identification with a delinquent sub-culture
This may be explained, in part, by labelling theory – formal involvement triggers a process whereby young people begin to identify themselves as criminals, and are labelled criminals by others, all of which helps to influence future decision to offend (Doolan, 1990)
Summary
Mike Doolan, ONZM; MSW (Distinction); MANZASW, is former Chief Social Worker of Child Youth and Family Services and led the policy team responsible for the youth justice provisions of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. He is the co-author of books on kinship care and child homicide and has published in the fields of youth justice, family group conferencing and violence in society
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