Youth Justice In England Research Articles

A Question of Age? Applying Desistance With Children

Youth justice in England and Wales has seen the increasing adoption of desistance thinking in recent years. There has been scarce academic debate of this development, despite the desistance evidence base focussing on adult pathways away from crime. This article examines the theorisation and application of desistance thinking with children, centring on the experiences and narratives of four ‘groups’ involved in the formal youth justice system in England and Wales, across two empirical studies. It challenges previous scholarship that denies the relevance of desistance theories to under-18s, arguing for progressive desistance practice that prioritises children’s healthy long-term development.

Child First and the end of ‘bifurcation’ in youth justice?

Purpose This study aims to critically evaluate the trajectory of the “Child First” guiding principle for youth justice in England and Wales, which challenges adult-centric constructions of children (when they offend) as “threatening” and asserts a range of theoretical and principled assumptions about the nature of childhood and children’s evolving capacity. Design/methodology/approach Focussing on how Child First seeks to transcend the socio-historically bifurcated (polarised/dichotomised) thinking and models/strategies/frameworks of youth justice, this study examines the extent and nature of this binary thinking and its historical and contemporary influence on responses to children’s offending, latterly manifested as more hybridised (yet still discernibly bifurcated) approaches. Findings Analyses identified an historical and contemporary influence on bifurcated responses to offending by children in the United Kingdom/England and Wales, subsequently manifested as more hybridised (yet still discernibly bifurcated) approaches. Analyses also identified a contemporary, progressive challenge to bifurcated youth justice thinking, policy and practice through the “Child First” guiding principle. Originality/value By tracing the trajectory of Child First as an explicit, progressive challenge to previous youth justice thinking and formal “approaches”, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to question whether, in taking this approach, Child First represents a clean break with the past, or is just the latest in a series of strategic realignments in youth justice seeking to resolve inherent tensions between competing constructions of children and their behaviour.

Girls in the juvenile justice system in England and Wales, 2002–2017

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a gap in the literature on youth justice in England and Wales by examining disaggregated patterns of juvenile court processing (i.e. proven offences) and custody. It provides new evidence to show that gendered effects are best observed over time. Looking at juvenile justice data over time allows us to see the effects of policy that are obscured in the short-term. This is especially important when considering small and specific populations, such as girls. It is often assumed that policy impacts smaller groups in the justice system (in this case, girls) in the same way as the larger group (in this case, boys), with boys’ experiences representing the norm. In this paper, we call into question that assumption by considering female and male proven offences and juvenile custody over time in England and Wales and show why gendered impacts should be given proper consideration. We also examine changes in the gender gap in proven offences and juvenile custody over time.

The life course of delinquency: reflections on the meaning of trajectories, transitions and turning points in youth justice

ABSTRACT This article challenges contemporary analyses of the nature of youth justice in England and Wales as partial and restricted in theoretical and conceptual terms. A life course perspective is adopted to examine the trajectory of youth justice as a dynamic artefact, constantly shaped by recurring, reconstructed and r/evolving contextual, thematic and stakeholder influences. A critical and thematic review of academic, government, policy and media literature using social construction as its analytical frame of reference in turn opens up the theoretical space to articulate an internally-coherent and nuanced framework for understanding the nature and development of youth justice past, present and future.

Youth Justice in the Digital Age: A Case Study of Practitioners’ Perspectives on the Challenges and Opportunities of Social Technology in Their Techno-Habitat in the United Kingdom

This article draws on original, empirical research that focused on the use of an experimental mobile application developed by the authors and used in the domain of youth justice in England. Against a backdrop of the theory of the paradox of technology with ideas of the networked self and child rights, the article explores the use of social technology with vulnerable/marginalised young people. Given the dearth in knowledge and understanding, in this area of social technology and young people in conflict with the law, the article focuses on an important, original and fast-developing issue in contemporary youth justice. Principally, the article explores the experiences and views of practitioners to promote a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges in the adoption of social technology in working with marginalised young people. Practitioner perceptions on the use of social technology in their own practice and its associated risks and benefits are also revealed. Study findings indicate that digital opportunities and challenges are embedded in organisational and cultural structures and practices. The article discusses implications for youth justice and ultimately for young people in conflict with the law who are caught up in the system. The article raises important issues about the likely increasing use of technology as a tool in rehabilitation and desistance; and its key messages will be of considerable interest to practitioners, managers and policy-makers who will have little option, as time goes on, to enter this controversial field.

The Future of Youth Justice

What is the future for youth justice in England and Wales? In a current climate of divergence, normlessness and local variations, we explore reform recommendations and the impact of economic austerity on local Youth Offending Teams: a retraction of support/services, yet increasing oversight by non-specialist managers. Four emerging youth justice delivery structures are identified, followed by an assessment of what does not work in practice – punishment, system contact, treatment and offender-focused interventions. We conclude that ‘what might work’ to progress youth justice is expert analysis, specialist youth workers and Children First principles in a coherent, flexible national policy context.

The changing shape of youth justice: Models of practice

This article reports on a two-year investigation, which maps out contemporary approaches to the delivery of youth justice in England, in light of substantial recent changes in this area of practice. The findings are derived from a detailed examination of youth offending plans and a series of corroborative semi-structured interviews with managers and practitioners from selected youth offending services. Our inquiry has enabled us to develop a detailed three-fold typology of youth justice agencies’ orientations towards practice, represented as ‘offender management’, ‘targeted intervention’ and ‘children and young people first’; as well as a small number of ‘outliers’ where priorities are articulated rather differently. Our findings enable us to reflect on this evidence to suggest that there are a number of ‘models’ of youth justice practice operating in parallel; and that there does not appear at present to be the kind of ‘orthodoxy’ in place which has sometimes prevailed in this field. We also raise doubts about previous representations of unified models of youth justice presumed to be operative at national or jurisdictional levels. We conclude with a number of further observations about the combined effect of current influences on the organization and realization of youth justice, including the growing emphasis on localized responsibility for delivery and increasingly complex expectations of the service context.

Desistance Approaches in Youth Justice – The Next Passing Fad or a Sea-Change for the Positive?

Youth justice in England and Wales has followed a risk-orientated model for almost two decades, requiring interventions with young people to mitigate assessed risk factors for offending. The desistance revolution evident in much of the adult system and research has been slow to influence change. The Youth Justice Board recently established the desistance-led AssetPlus assessment model, proclaiming that it will facilitate this change. However, youth justice practitioners appear not to have been able to apply desistance theory, resulting in ‘business as usual’ assessments and deficit-focused intervention plans. How can desistance be truly embedded in a system still dominated by risk?

Re-inventing Diversion

This article reviews recent developments in the area of ‘out of court’ disposals in youth justice in England and Wales, highlighting the emergence of recent trends towards decreased use of formal procedures to deal with the reported offences of young people. The idea considers possible explanations for these developments and assesses the contribution of a number of recent practice initiatives with a diversionary orientation. The article reflects on the varying rationales underpinning these developments, and wider influences in the form of economically driven pragmatism, before concluding that in order to sustain recent achievements, diversion must demonstrably strengthen its claims to legitimacy.

Assemblages of penal governance, social justice and youth justice partnerships

Youth justice in England and Wales is delivered by multi-agency Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) which are expected to work in partnership with social welfare agencies to provide ‘holistic’ support that targets the interrelated personal and social needs of young offenders associated with their risk of reoffending. This article engages with criminological debates which attempt to interpret the hybrid assemblages of penal governance that have characterized late modernity in order to theorize why these partnerships have had only limited success in addressing the social context of youth crime. It will be argued, evidenced by an analysis of research data on YOT partnerships in action, that these assemblages are ‘classed’ in so much as they act as conduits for strategic elements which articulate powerful class interests (along with those of other social forces) to be translated into practice. Such strategic elements sustain class inequality and deny social justice to young people in conflict with the law.

'You Have to do it for Yourself': Responsibilization in Youth Justice and Young People's Situated Knowledge of Youth Justice Practice

Drawing on governmentality theories, accounts of the responsibilizing effects of policy and practice have dominated recent studies of youth justice in England and Wales. This article develops this debate by asking: what can it mean to claim that young offenders are responsibilized by contemporary modes of governing youth offending? An exposition of the dominant ways in which ‘responsibilization’ is conceptualized highlights the theoretical foreclosures that, within such frameworks, make the subjective experiences of young offenders ‘unknowable’. We suggest that an empirical analysis of young people’s situated knowledge helps elucidate what responsibilization could mean in relation to young offenders: that they came to know there was no one else to help them change their lives.

Adolescent to Parent Violence and Youth Justice in England and Wales

Adolescent to parent violence is a problem which remains largely unarticulated within youth justice policy literature and academic discourse in England and Wales. This article presents research evidence suggesting that adolescent to parent violence is a significant problem which needs to be clearly addressed in the youth justice policy agenda. Although it is widely recognised by practitioners and regularly encountered in their work, there is a ‘silence’ at the policy level and a lack of appropriate support services or responses. The article considers reasons for the absence of adolescent to parent violence in youth justice policy and argues for the importance of recognising and defining the problem and for the development of appropriate responses.

Inside the Youth Justice Board: ambiguity and influence in New Labour's youth justice

PurposeThe Youth Justice Board (YJB) was established in 1998 as a central part of the Labour government's radical programme of youth justice reform. Yet while it has had a central role in directing the culture, organisation and activities of youth justice in England and Wales, it is poorly understood. As its future hangs in the balance, this paper seeks to draw on a unique empirical study of the operation of the YJB to explore what it is, what it does and why it is so difficult to describe.Design/methodology/approachThe research involved 18 months' ethnographic fieldwork. For one calendar year (2006‐2007), research focused on the internal operation of the YJB including observations of meetings, depth interviews and documentary analysis. A second strand of research explored the regional operation of the YJB. This involved observations of regional monitors and assessment processes and interviews and focus groups with Youth Offending Teams staff.FindingsThe research shows that the YJB is an inherently ambiguous organisation. This ambiguity has made it simultaneously highly insecure and extremely productive, enabling it to extend its influence and activities beyond those initially envisaged in New Labour's reforms. However, the difficulty in defining the YJB also suggests the full effect of its activities will only become clear once it has gone.Originality/valueWhile there has been much academic interest in the YJB, this research is the only empirical study of it. It, therefore gives a unique insight into the organisation and culture of the English and Welsh youth justice system.

Youth Justice in England and Wales: A Risky Business

Risk factor research dominates explanatory models of youth offending and “evidence-based” policy and practice with young people in the youth justice system in England and Wales. Asset is the product of these actuarial ideas and has put the risk factor prevention paradigm into practice. This article evaluates the impact that an actuarial approach to assessment has had on both the representation of young people who offend and the way in which their behavior is explained and responded to. It describes the factors that led to the introduction of Asset, before briefly summarizing the positive assessments of Asset. It is contended that the “achievement” of actuarialism in youth justice is to render arbitrary and discriminatory practices acceptable, and apparently rational.

Protecting Rights at the Margins of Youth Justice in England and Wales: Intensive Fostering, Custody and Leaving Custody

This article attempts to set out a framework for understanding children's rights in the youth justice system. It distinguishes between the child's status and rights as offender, and the child's status and rights as child. It argues that at certain stages — namely, the margins of youth justice (the pre- and post-crime contexts) - the child's primary status is child, and hence his/her rights as a child should have primacy. It applies the framework set out in part one to the post-crime margin, specifically to the use of intensive fostering as part of a community sentence, to children in custody, and to children leaving custody. It considers some of the children's rights issues which arise here.

Youth Justice, Social Exclusion and the Demise of Social Justice

Abstract: A key theme underlying recent changes to youth justice in England and Wales has been responsibilising young offenders by holding them accountable for their offending. While this has led to a focus on offending behaviour and restorative justice programmes to address perceived deficits in young offenders' cognitive skills, it has also been recognised that their ability to desist from crime is frequently constrained by acute levels of socio‐economic disadvantage. With this concern in mind, policy makers have introduced several initiatives to combat the risks associated with social exclusion, and facilitate reintegration. Yet research suggests that these initiatives have failed to alleviate the problem. It will be argued that this is because New Labour has constituted reintegration as the personal moral responsibility of young offenders, with scant regard to structural barriers and broader social justice ideals. The article concludes by suggesting that a solution may lie in the propagation of a ‘transformative’ rights‐based agenda.

Youth justice in England and Wales: the good, the bad and the ugly?

Youth justice in England and Wales: the good, the bad and the ugly?

What Do We Want? The ‘SHAPE’ Campaign and the Reform of Youth Justice

This paper considers how the stated objectives of the recently launched SHAPE campaign to reform youth justice in England and Wales might be concretised, and its strategy refined, in the light of recent research evidence and the present government’s political imperatives and administrative priorities.

Recent Developments in Restorative Justice for Young People in England and Wales: Community Participation and Representation

This article examines some recent attempts to introduce elements of restorative justice into the youth justice system. We focus on the introduction of referral orders and youth offender panels and, in particular, consider the issues of community participation and representation. In examining the early experiences of these new ways of working we highlight a series of questions that arise out of the tension between the participatory character of restorative justice and the managerialist nature of much contemporary youth justice in England and Wales.

Policy Transfers and ‘What Works’: Some Reflections on Comparative Youth Justice

This article explores the implications for youth justice in England and Wales of borrowing other states’ penal initiatives in the pursuit of a pragmatic ‘what works’ agenda in crime prevention and reducing re-offending. It is argued that whilst the policy transfer of elements of restorative justice from the likes of Australasia and Scotland has the potential to radically rethink current practice its implementation is partial and piecemeal. The dominant recurrent influence remains that of American inspired punitive justice. Meanwhile some important lessons in child protection, diversion and decarceration from Europe are ignored. The adoption of ‘what works’ is highly selective and in itself provides a dubious basis for reform. What superficially appears as a new open-mindedness to learn from academic evaluation and ‘best practice’ world-wide, masks the fundamentally political and ideological nature of contemporary youth justice policy.