#10536 - Youth Justice - Criminology

• The ways in which, and the extent to which, the state deals differently with children and young ppl under 18 who commit crimes.

• Policies over the last century to divert minors from prosecution include cautioning, reprimands, warnings and the new youth conditional caution.

• Key elements of the youth justice system set out by Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (CDA).

A separate system

• Art 40 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - lays down principles of diff treatment for children - defined as being under 18. it endorses diversion away from the CJS.

• UK ratified it in 1991, but there has been for a long time before this a separate system for dealing with children who offend.

• The long-standing policy aim of ensuring that formal processes are child-friendly and that where poss criminal proceedings are avoided stems from our ideas about children development - fears for their 'contamination' by adult offenders.

Offending by minors

• 1998 MORI survey of 11-16 year olds found that only 70% of children could say with certainty that they had not committed an offence in the prev 15 months - but the MORI Youth Survey (2008) showed that the overall proportion of young people reporting that they'd committed an offence in the prev 12 months had declined compared to prev surveys.

• Peak ages for offending are from 15-20yrs old, 2005 stats of recorded indictable offences suggested peak age of 17 for males and 15 for females.

• Youth Justice Board (2009) - girls involved in offending for a shorter period, commit fewer offences, and commit less serious offences, than boys.

The offenders: who and why?

• Factors associated with offending show that young offenders are marginalised young ppl - with a range of problems that require medical, social work or educational responses.

• Goldson (1999) - argues that 'it's well estab'd that the social circs of children in trouble, 'young offenders' are invariably scarred by complex configurations and multiple interrelated forms of disadvantage'.

• Berman (2011) - 47% of male sentenced prisoners and 50% of female sentenced prisoners had run away as a child - vs 10% of the general pop.

Over 25% of prisoners had been taken into care as a child vs 2% of general pop.

• The idea that responsibility and culpability should be mitigated has more force in its application to young offenders - they do not have the capability and independence to rise above their circs and propensities to offend can be more easily 'treated' when the offender's young.

• Used notions of 'nudge' factors which facilitated involvement and 'tug' factors which inhibited involvement.

• These official stats rebutted the common belief that the riots were result of gang culture - onlt 13% of arrestees were affiliated to a gang.

• The report included the following findings which bears out the links btw offending and deprivation:

1. 35% of adult defendants were claiming unemployment benefits compared to 12% of the working age population.

2. 42% of young people brought before the courts had free school meals during their time at school - compared to only 16% in maintained secondary schools.

3. 64% of those young people lived in one of the most 20 deprived areas in the country - only 3% lived in one of the 20 least deprived areas.

• Home Office report on the riots - 'nudge' and 'tug' factors.

• s.44 Children and Young Persons Act 1933 estab'd that courts must 'have regard to' the welfare of the child: a mandatory statutory requirement to ensure that children have been given at least a modicum of special treatment when appearing in a court, partic when appearing in a Youth or Crown Court.

• Under s.10(4) and (5) of the Children Act 2004 a youth offending team (YOT) is one of the authorities which is a 'relevant provider of a children's services authority in England' and therefore under a duty to co-operate with the authority in making relevant arrangements. s.10(2) - authorities must make arrangements:

With a view to improving the well-being of children…so far as relating to:

1. Physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing

2. Protection from harm and neglect

3. Education, training and recreation

4. The contribution made by them to society

5. Social and economic wellbeing

• s.11(2) of the 04 Act also makes clear that a YOT is one of the bodies which must make arrangements for ensuring that they discharge their functions 'having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children'.

• The duty to 'have regard to' means that, providing consideration has been given to the interests of the child, magistrates' and Crown Courts can legally give precedence to other interests than welfare, such as the need to protect the public/prevent reoffending.

• The new s.142A in the CJA 2003 states that the court must have regard to the principle aim of the youth justice system (which is to prevent reoffending), the welfare of the offender (in accordance with s.44 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933) and the purposes off sentencing.

Conceptualising welfare and justice

• 'welfare' and 'justice' need explanation in the juvenile justice context - they are words used to indicate whether the main focus of policy and practice is the child's needs or the child's offending - whether the constraining principle is in the child's best interests or the young offender getting his just deserts.

• The justice approach is characterised as involving 'informed and transparent decisions' in courts with an end product of punishment 'portrayed as rational, consistent and determinate' (Scraton and Haydon 2002).

• In contrast, the welfare approach is associated with interventionist measures of care, protection and rehab. Associated with decision making by professionals trained in social work, exercising their discretion to determine what's in the child's best interests.

• Justice perspective criticises this - 'leaving children to the discretionary powers of professionals' (Scraton and Haydon 2002).

• Welfare approach is utilitarian - its justification lies in the intended outcome of improvements in the child's well being. Justice approach is retributivist with a focus on personal culpability.

• Clarke (2002) said it was 'ill conceived' to see juvenile justice as the site for the 'justice v welfare' debate - argued that social work had contributed to, rather than replace, punitive juvenile justice.

Developments in diversion

• Children Act 1908 estab'd juvenile court for the whole of the UK apart from Scotland. The name and role of the court lasted for almost 100yrs.

• 1960s - watershed in the way young ppl were dealt with in diff parts of UK - juvenile justice became more politicised (Pitts 1988) - the Left aligned with the welfare approach and the Right with the justice approach.

• The Children and Young Persons Act 1969 retained juvenile courts but gave Social Services Departments a bigger role, ended detention in the CJS, and lowered age of criminal responsibility. So it tried to compromise.

Diversion before the 1990s

• The development of diversion of children from the CJS stems from period after WW2 when there was consensus that policy should move towards treating children who offend in terms of their welfare - diversion was in their best interests.

• Diversion became part of the policy of 'bifurcation' - the policy of diverting most young offenders from prosecution whilst a smaller number of serious offenders are processed thru the CJS and punished (Bottoms 1985).

• This policy means that the higher-profile serious cases can be treated in a touch justice fashion whilst...