Youth Justice System Research Articles

The logic of responsibilisation: a critical discourse analysis of the juvenile offenders law in Chile

ABSTRACT Drawing from the logics approach to discourse analysis, and supplementing with the nodal framework, this paper seeks to contribute to the critical analysis of the punitive turn in the youth justice system. Taking the case of Chile, we suggest that current interventions framed around the signifier of ‘responsibilisation’ can sustain discourses of both punishment and right protection simultaneously, whilst preventing their radical contestation by providing a term that ‘covers over’ or conceals the contradictory elements of both.

But Where are the Parents? A Narrative Review of the Literature on the Experience of Parents When Their Child is in Contact with the Justice System

ABSTRACT Contact from the police to advise a parent that their child has come into conflict with the law can be devastating. Of the 904 individuals formally referred to youth justice services in Northern Ireland during 2020–21, one-quarter were reoffences. Most will involve boys’ aged 15 plus years with numbers reflecting the wider UK prevalence. Whilst “violent” offences account for the majority, typically this means minor assaults. Distressing as this is, for a small number of parents this marks the beginning or continuation of justice system involvement with their child, especially when younger at first involvement. Diversionary and court-ordered referrals represent the majority and in almost all cases parents/a parent will have a role in such required processes. Parents may also need to navigate separate agencies within the justice system depending on the seriousness of their child’s offending. Additionally, many will deal with their child’s ongoing challenges and needs, navigating a range of other services whilst potentially coping with multiple disadvantages and exclusions. This paper first considers the context, and circumstances of such parents. Next, it analyses key findings from a narrative review of the available international literature on parents’ experiences at critical points and during key processes of their child’s involvement with youth justice systems. Evidence indicates a unique stigma is attached to their experience. Parents feel shamed and responsible whilst having to cope with traumas, stresses and isolation in their role. Opportunities for peer-led support and peer advocacy are beneficial and offer hope and unique support where this is available. Further research that includes parents is required to better understand their needs at each stage of justice system involvement, and to provide opportunities for meaningful participation in upholding rights and supporting them in putting their children first.

Social Identity Mapping With Justice‐Involved Young People: Exploring Identity Pathways to Aid the Desistance of Criminal Offending

ABSTRACTSocial groups and the environments they create play a prominent role in the desistance versus persistence of young peoples' criminal offending. Social Identity Mapping (SIM) provides a quantitative method for understanding the social network of young offenders. This exploratory study was guided by two broad research questions: (1) using the SIM task, we wanted to investigate the experiences of young people moving through the Youth Justice System in Aotearoa New Zealand, and (2) through the use of the SIM task combined with qualitative interviews, we wanted to gain novel insight into the influences that important social groups had on young people's behaviour. The participants were nine young people currently working their way through the Youth Justice System in Aotearoa New Zealand. The average number of groups identified in the SIM task was four (range: 3–6), with the most common groups identified being friends, family, and Gisborne (i.e., the town in which participants all lived). Through the semi‐structured interviews, participants noted that they were excluded from some groups (e.g., school) due to their delinquent behaviour. In addition, despite strong motivation to join the workforce and develop a career, participants' social networks and low educational attainment made achieving this goal very challenging. Our findings suggest that desistance efforts would be well served by broadening young offenders' social networks.

Re-Designing Secure Children’s Homes Through a Child-First Lens

This article explores existing learning gaps concerning optimal ways to support children within and beyond secure care in England and Wales, with a specific focus on Secure Children’s Homes (SCHs). Insights from key stakeholders working in SCHs are often omitted from research despite being fundamental to understanding both challenges and best-practice initiatives. The Children’s Residential Care Research Network, which is a collaboration between the authors, aims to develop novel research with stakeholders working across the secure children’s estate and expand the extant literature to inform the design and build of future Secure Children’s Homes (SCH) through a Child-First lens. The research presented here involves a mixed-methods approach gathering rich qualitative data from participants across the sector. Fifty-three participants engaged in participatory methodologies, focus groups, and interviews, which led to a large data set. Thematic analysis identified three key themes to inform the design and build of new SCHs. SCHs should (i) be close to home to enable family involvement and continuity of care, (ii) feel like a home, and (iii) be flexible and adaptive to changing needs. These findings are feeding into the design of two new homes in England as well as the refurbishment of existing provision and can also influence future expansion of the secure estate. The research also contributes to knowledge about how the Child-First tenets can be engaged to improve outcomes for children deprived of their liberty, both in and outside the youth justice system.

Within-case comparison of the adult and youth justice systems: New directions for a ‘fractured’ penal state?

Building on recent literature on the importance of local grounded comparison and the ‘fracturing’ of the penal state, this article argues that within-case comparison of the adult and youth justice systems can shed important light on the stark differences that persist in how and why we punish. Using the case of Irish youth justice to illustrate the utility of fracturing the penal state horizontally, as well as vertically, we argue that this provides a helpful lens for making sense of the drivers of penal policy, especially the historical particularities of any penal phenomenon.

Exploring Children’s Journeys into the Youth Justice System from Multiple Perspectives: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

In order to contribute to research into youth crime prevention, the current study aimed to explore the experiences of children in conflict with the law prior to receiving their first caution or conviction. Participants were recruited at a Youth Justice Service and included five children working with the service, their five case managers, and two of their parents/guardians. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and timelines were used to support the children in sharing their experiences. Data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, which focuses on understanding how individuals experience the world and how they make sense of those experiences. Six group experiential themes were identified within the analysis. These consider the events leading up to offending and whether it could have been predicted, the extent to which the children felt supported, the effect of school practices, the impact of peer influences, difficulties with managing emotions, and the children’s readiness for change. Each theme is discussed and recommendations for practice and future research are considered. The importance of placing children’s experiences at the forefront of research is highlighted throughout.

Impact of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia

Children in residential care have the most complex needs of all children growing up in Out-of-Home care (OOHC), due to complex trauma from pre-care experiences of abuse and neglect, inadequate therapeutic supports while in care and significant placement instability. Some argue that residential care settings are intrinsically criminogenic, as evidenced by significant over-representation of this cohort in youth justice. However, little is known about how children’s experiences of trauma, including removal from family and placement in OOHC, is viewed by lawyers and decision-makers in criminal cases involving children in care. Criminal justice decisions can have long-term ramifications for children in care and custodial sentencing can often be a precursor to ongoing incarceration into adulthood. This qualitative, cross-national study explored the impacts of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 legal, youth justice and judicial stakeholders in England, Wales (UK), New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (Australia). While there are considerable differences in the operation of child protection and youth justice systems between these jurisdictions, thematic analysis using NVivo14 identified. confirmed ongoing systemic factors associated with criminalisation identified in previous literature persists despite attempts to address these through policy and practice reforms. These factors include an absence of therapeutic supports, unstable and unsafe residential care placements, over-reliance on police to respond to minor incidents, increasingly punitive police responses lacking awareness of the impacts of childhood trauma and inappropriate use of custody as an ‘alternative’ placement. These findings suggest the similar systemic processes across these jurisdictions are likely to reflect deeply entrenched ideologies about ‘care’ and ‘protection’ that function to criminalise trauma. The implications of these systemic factors when children are exposed to formal criminal justice decision-making are considered.

Linking data across multiple sectors to reduce health inequities among justice-involved young people in Australia

BackgroundA scarcity of evidence on the health and social needs of justice-involved young people contributes to persistent health and social inequities. Linking data from multiple sectors provides an opportunity to improve the health, justice, and social systems that this group interacts with, with a view to reducing these inequities. MethodsWe established two population-level cohorts of justice-involved young people using multi-sectoral data linkage: (1) we linked youth justice records in Queensland from 1993-2014 for 48,670 young people to adult correctional records, death records, and coronial records; (2) we linked all youth justice records in Australia from 2000-2019 for 88,110 young people with national emergency department, hospital, primary care, pharmaceutical, and death records. We calculated mortality rates among young people exposed to the youth justice system and compared them with the age- and sex-matched general population. ResultsJustice-involved young people in Queensland died at a 4.1 times higher rate than their non-justice-involved peers. Approximately one-third (34.6%) of deaths were from suicide. There was a 67% increased rate of death due to non-communicable diseases compared to the general population. ConclusionsThe national cohort will fill evidence gaps on health needs and health care use after justice system contact. These two cohorts provide the first comprehensive look into the health of justice-involved young people in Australia and internationally. They form the foundation for routine monitoring and reporting on health needs and trajectories. Multi-sectoral data linkage is essential for sustainable, timely, and evidence-informed decision-making to improve systems, health, and mortality outcomes.

Fa’a Sāmoa Criminology: An Aspect of Pacific Criminology Counternarrative

Criminological imagination requires that criminologists adopt multiple perspectives on their study subjects, shifting backwards and forwards between the personal and remote, the micro and the macro, or the theoretical and the empirical. Criminology should thus be ‘refractive’ (Frauley 2015: 21), harnessing the multi-perspectivism of social life to produce fuller, sharper analyses that reveal links between individual lives, social structures, and historical context. One such perspective is fa’a Sāmoa criminology. Not much is known about this worldview or its relationship with criminology, let alone its application as a credible epistemology. This article argues that Western criminology is not the only way to generate new knowledge and recommended solutions and that instead fa’a Sāmoa criminology offers an alternative way. Two qualitative case studies demonstrate how Sāmoan thinking and doing applies in the contexts of Sāmoan young people’s interaction with the youth justice system and hard-to-reach gang-involved Sāmoan peoples. Key implications are highlighted and recommended.

The over-representation of neurodivergent children in Youth Justice Systems and The Youth Court.

The over-representation of neurodivergent children in Youth Justice Systems and The Youth Court.

Working Individually and Collectively: Assisting Young People with Cognitive Disability Transitioning from Statutory Systems

AbstractYoung people with cognitive disability exiting statutory child protection and/or youth justice systems are a particularly vulnerable group. They have varied, complex and dynamic needs. These are often poorly responded to, due in part to a lack of formal and informal supports. There remains a lack of specialised supports and a dearth of evidence regarding best practice in supporting this group. This paper explores social work practices which respond to the social isolation of this cohort and the gap in support as young people transition to adulthood. The paper focuses on a group program in Queensland (Australia) which was specifically designed to support young people with a cognitive disability leaving child protection and/or youth justice systems. It reports on a subset of data from a mixed-methods study. It presents the perspectives of the young people and their practitioners regarding the practices that supported the engagement of young people and created opportunities for connection and skill development within the group program. The findings highlight the importance of relationship-driven practices that are supported and resourced by the organisation, and the need for parallel individual and group work processes for achieving positive outcomes with young people with cognitive disability transitioning from statutory systems.

Examining the characteristics of children who experience contact with the youth justice system in Queensland: implications for the minimum age of criminal responsibility

ABSTRACT In jurisdictions such as Queensland, where the minimum age of criminal responsibility (i.e., 10 years of age) is out of step with international law and Australian human rights obligations, there are significant concerns about the criminalisation of children. These concerns include the potential for ensnaring young people, particularly First Nations children, into the criminal justice system rather than addressing their underlying needs. We use a birth cohort of individuals registered as born in Queensland in 1990 and followed up to age 24 years to examine the characteristics of young people who experienced their first youth justice system contact between ages 10 and 16 years. First Nations youth were significantly overrepresented among those with the earliest ages of contact (i.e., 10–13 years). Early youth justice contact was largely for minor and less serious forms of offending (i.e., property-related), but those with the earliest ages of onset typically went on to experience more persistent and serious offending outcomes up to age 24 years. Raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility alongside the implementation of culturally relevant early intervention, diversion and support services is likely to significantly reduce the overrepresentation of First Nations people in the criminal justice system.

Examining the characteristics of children who experience contact with the youth justice system in Queensland: Implications for the minimum age of criminal responsibility

Examining the characteristics of children who experience contact with the youth justice system in Queensland: Implications for the minimum age of criminal responsibility

‘Back to Basics’: A Practice Approach to Reforming Youth Justice

The delivery of high-quality case work is central to efforts to reform youth justice systems around the world. Youth justice practitioners can be the most effective agents of change when the focus of their casework practice is on listening to justice-involved young people, helping them to feel safe and to avoid re-traumatization, and working in ways that promote positive childhood experiences. It is argued that developing ‘practice-based evidence’ in this way can help to unite the field, to close the policy implementation gap, and simultaneously contribute to the personal wellbeing of young people and the broader agenda of public safety.

Systemic failures in New Zealand's child-welfare and Family Court proceedings underlie and perpetuate child offending

Early childhood offending onset (before age 14 years) is associated with increased risk of lifecourse offending and poor life outcomes. The vast majority of children who offend in Aotearoa New Zealand (N.Z.) have had involvement with the child-welfare system prior to offending. Why does this engagement with statutory systems not prevent the trajectory into offending, nor its persistence into the youth-justice system (aged 14–18)? This study interviewed 33 key stakeholders (including family members, lawyers, police officers, social workers, psychologists, school and cultural leaders) on the systemic issues they had experienced with children who had offended and their families. Interviews were transcribed and analysed by the authors. Barriers to effectively responding to offending (and, more importantly, prevention of offending in the first place) included child-welfare engagement that was delayed and ineffective; deficit-focused engagement with families and children; under-resourced Family Court systems that delayed court proceedings and further hindered effective child-welfare intervention; and systemic shortfalls that continued once a child had offended, with widespread uncertainty as to how best to respond or access appropriate resources. Earlier and more effective intervention with children and families with child-welfare concerns is needed to prevent and reduce offending and victimisation of and by children.

Navigating social work practice research challenges: collaboration, participant rights and ethics

In this article, we discuss the challenges in engaging with research participants from marginalised communities, including from some minority communities where there are interconnecting issues of poverty, racism, school exclusion, family breakdown and sometimes youth crime. This is aligned with experiences of developing research partnerships with local services in evaluation work. Two research case studies, from evaluation research with child and family social work and the youth justice system, discuss experiences of researching within inner-city areas, navigating researcher–practitioner relationships and maintaining ethical research standards. In both cases, entering the research field presented challenges related to sensitivities and distress experienced by participants. Our case-study discussions demonstrate how the researchers responded to risk and unwitting involvement with young people in conflict, in prison and experiencing family bereavement. Highlighted is the vital importance of local agencies providing accurate information about the families and young people that the researchers are asked to contact in order to ensure that respect and research ethics are upheld and no trauma is caused. Planning and building trust are key to ensuring that time is given for respectful engagement and that agencies are ready for ongoing support and follow-up as needed. The article will explore how these methodological considerations can be taken forward.

Population Characteristics in Justice Health Research Based on PubMed Abstracts From 1963 to 2023: Text Mining Study.

The field of epidemiological criminology (or justice health research) has emerged in the past decade, studying the intersection between the public health and justice systems. To ensure research efforts are focused and equitable, it is important to reflect on the outputs in this area and address knowledge gaps. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of populations researched in a large sample of published outputs and identify research gaps and biases. A rule-based, text mining method was applied to 34,481 PubMed abstracts published from 1963 to 2023 to identify 4 population characteristics (sex, age, offender type, and nationality). We evaluated our method in a random sample of 100 PubMed abstracts. Microprecision was 94.3%, with microrecall at 85.9% and micro-F1-score at 89.9% across the 4 characteristics. Half (n=17,039, 49.4%) of the 34,481 abstracts did not have any characteristic mentions and only 1.3% (n=443) reported sex, age, offender type, and nationality. From the 5170 (14.9%) abstracts that reported age, 3581 (69.3%) mentioned young people (younger than 18 years) and 3037 (58.7%) mentioned adults. Since 1990, studies reporting female-only populations increased, and in 2023, these accounted for almost half (105/216, 48.6%) of the research outputs, as opposed to 33.3% (72/216) for male-only populations. Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark) had the highest number of abstracts proportional to their incarcerated populations. Offenders with mental illness were the most common group of interest (840/4814, 17.4%), with an increase from 1990 onward. Research reporting on female populations increased, surpassing that involving male individuals, despite female individuals representing 5% of the incarcerated population; this suggests that male prisoners are underresearched. Although calls have been made for the justice health area to focus more on young people, our results showed that among the abstracts reporting age, most mentioned a population aged <18 years, reflecting a rise of youth involvement in the youth justice system. Those convicted of sex offenses and crimes relating to children were not as researched as the existing literature suggests, with a focus instead on populations with mental illness, whose rates rose steadily in the last 30 years. After adjusting for the size of the incarcerated population, Nordic countries have conducted proportionately the most research. Our findings highlight that despite the presence of several research reporting guidelines, justice health abstracts still do not adequately describe the investigated populations. Our study offers new insights in the field of justice health with implications for promoting diversity in the selection of research participants.

Exploration of how youth justice staff perceive the speech-language pathology role and service provision in an Australian youth justice setting

Purpose The aims of this project were to explore how youth justice staff perceive the speech-language pathology role and provision in an Australian youth justice setting, including the speech-language pathologist’s role in supporting young people to participate in the activities of the youth justice service studied. Method A narrative inquiry approach was employed to guide semi-structured interviews with youth justice staff. Perceptions and experiences were analysed via reflexive thematic analysis, with member checking and inter-rater coding utilised for rigour. Result Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted. Interviewees worked in either the custodial setting (n = 3) or the community setting (n = 4) for the youth justice service studied, though most had worked in both settings. Six themes and six subthemes were identified from the interview data and related to factors that supported improved participation in the activities of the youth justice service studied. These factors were the speech-language pathology skillset and approach, and that there were systemic barriers within the service. All participants perceived speech-language pathology input as valuable for the young people in the service studied. There was also acknowledgement by the participants of how speech, language, and communication needs of the young people impacted their participation in the activities of the service studied. These findings were despite the perceived need for organisation-wide education on the speech-language pathologist role and offering. Conclusion Increased understanding of how youth justice staff perceive the role and benefits of speech-language pathology in supporting young people in contact with the youth justice system will assist with service planning, inform education strategies, and may support policy change.

Approaches for supporting youth dually involved in child protection and youth justice systems: An international policy analysis

The high representation of children involved across both child protection and youth justice systems remains a pressing concern. Contributing factors include unnecessary police intervention for behavioural difficulties in residential care, and deficient systems integration particularly between child protection and youth justice. Policy reforms in the past 15–20 years have aimed to prevent and address this concern across jurisdictions such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The study offers an updated review and analysis of these policies, targeting researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the field. Examination of selected available policies identified four main strategies utilised: joint practice protocols, policies aimed at reducing the criminalisation of children in out-of-home care, crossover court lists, and specialised practice models like the Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM). There is promising evidence for some approaches, notably the CYPM, however, most suffer from a lack of implementation and outcomes evaluation, insufficient diversity considerations, and minimal inclusion of lived experience in design and implementation. Findings suggest future policy reforms should prioritise the development of whole-of-government strategies, involve children's perspectives, emphasise prevention, restorative and diversionary responses, multi-agency collaboration, ongoing support for implementation, and rigorous evaluation.

The Outcomes of Trauma-Informed Practice in Youth Justice: An Umbrella Review

Findings of high rates of complex trauma among justice-involved young people have engendered interest in developing trauma-informed youth justice systems. Although there have been several reviews of trauma-informed practice in youth justice settings, uncertainty remains about whether this approach can produce the outcomes expected of youth justice services. In this study we summarize findings from recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses to provide an overview of evidence relevant to implementing trauma-informed youth justice. We conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews published between 2017 and 2023 that included group-based primary studies of trauma-informed interventions for justice-involved young people. Reviews were located via searches of PsycINFO, PubMedCentral, Embase, Criminal Justice s with Full Text, and ProQuest. Data extracted from each review included the number and type of primary studies reviewed, and outcomes related to trauma symptomatology, mental health and wellbeing, and justice system involvement. Nine systematic reviews met our inclusion criteria. Improvements in trauma symptoms, mental health and wellbeing, and justice system involvement were documented in each review. The strongest evidence related to the impact of trauma-focused interventions on posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, but less evidence was available to demonstrate outcomes of organizational level and systemic components of trauma-informed practice. Each review highlighted the need to strengthen the methodological quality of primary studies. Trauma-informed practice should be seriously considered as part of any effort to implement evidence-based youth justice. This should extend beyond treatment of trauma symptomatology to incorporate a broader approach to trauma-informed practice that is organizationally embedded.