Children First, Offenders Second: The Centrality of Engagement in Positive Youth Justice

Abstract

Contemporary European youth justice practice, notably in England andWales, fosters retrospective, risk-focused and reductionist views of children. Enforced, inequitable, prescriptive and adult-led youth justice relationships adulterise children and responsibilise them fully for their offending behaviour, disengaging them from constructive youth justice interventions. This article sets out and evidences an alternative model of youth justice: Children First, Offenders Second (CFOS). The CFOS model offers a whole child, preventative and diversionary approach that normalises offending by children and promotes strengths and positive behaviour. The model is grounded in the principles of child-friendly, child-appropriate and legitimate practice as a means of engaging children with youth justice services and interventions. Evidence of how these key principles have been animated in local practice is provided and implications for engagement in the youth justice context are discussed.

Towards a positive youth justice

“…It is not within the scope of this paper to exhaustively describe all that might be desired in our responses (but see Haines and Case 2015), nor in practice are the principles discrete activities, but are in reality over-lapping and mutually reinforcing.…”

“…As a result of the 'responsiblising' (Muncie 2004) A justice system which sees children in conflict with the law as 'children first and offenders second' (Haines and Case 2015) is one which gives responsibility to the adults around the child to ensure that the child's rights and needs, as identified by the UNCRC, are met. Children who offend seriously and/or persistently are predominantly drawn from circumstances where neither of these requirements are met Muncie 2006, Creaney andSmith 2014).…”

“…The priorities for the strategy are five-fold: a partnership approach, a focus on early intervention, prevention and diversion, reducing reoffending, effective use of custody Consequently, the priorities, objectives and principles of the strategy reflect, map onto and animate the guiding features of a children first approach to positive youth justice (Haines and Case 2015).…”

“…Once labelled as an offender the child finds it hard to shake off this master identity. (Haines and Case 2015) asserts that early and preventative interventions should be universally accessible. We should not solely target psychosocial individual, familial and educational issues, but also the prevalent macro-level, socio-structural factors which leave children vulnerable to social exclusion from childhood poverty and associated structural inequalities such as high levels of crime, victimisation, deprived neighbours and reduced employment opportunities.…”

“…second' (Haines and Case 2015). We cohere this paper around a set of four guiding principles for positive youth justice, set against the context of current practice in England and Wales, which is often portrayed as hostile to the interests of children developing practice that pursue a children first approach are included throughout to illustrate the evidence base for such an approach and to explore the potential for wider adoption of the four principles and for a 'positive turn' in our responses to children in conflict with the law.…”