The changing shape of youth justice: Models of practice

Abstract

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.

Professional Perspectives of Youth Justice Policy Implementation: Contextual and Coalface Challenges

“…Bateman 2017). However, contemporary youth justice policymaking has been characterised as confused/contradictory (see Goldson 2019; Hopkins‐Burke 2016; Muncie 2008), excessively politicised (Smith 2011; Smith and Gray 2019) and even bereft of consolidating principles (Goldson and Muncie 2006) – arguments that coalesce to form the ‘youth governance’ critique of youth justice (Phoenix 2016). Although these criticisms can tend towards overgeneralisation and caricature of youth justice policy trajectories in order to emphasise academic argument, the assertion that neither policymaking nor policy implementation necessarily develop along linear and predictable ‘pathways’ (Case and Hampson 2019) is unequivocal.…”

Not Wired Up? The Neuroscientific Turn in Youth to Adult (Y2A) Transitions Policy

“…However, notions that older systems of control have been replaced by an entirely new penology have been found wanting, with historical differences between a more welfare-oriented youth justice and justice-oriented adult justice still remaining in varying forms and degrees (Cheliotis, 2006; Smith and Gray, 2018). More nuanced analyses have sought to move beyond simplistic binary divides which separate youth and adult justice, or old and contemporary practices, with attempts to identify how knowledge, power and culture is (re)produced and embodied within structural relations and becomes diffused and negotiated among different groups and actors.…”

“…Since 2010, there has been further significant change with, inter alia, the removal of many of the centralised performance indicators that were felt to constrain practitioners into reaching arbitrary goals, increased diversionary tools at the ‘front end’ for youth offenders, a purported ‘rehabilitation revolution’, all of which has taken place under an ‘age of austerity’ (Smith and Gray, 2018). Nevertheless, the footprint of a managerialist ethos, coupled with the dominance of developmental ‘deficits-based’ discourses and practices remain heavily ingrained.…”

Shifting sands: The reconfiguration of neoliberal youth penality

“…Our research mapped out a less chaotic youth justice landscape with 'children and young people first' and 'targeted intervention' practitioners leading the struggle to contest the neoliberal constitution of 'effective practice' and effect a more critical vision (Smith and Gray, 2018).…”

“…Challenging the architecture for the delivery of youth penality Haines and Case (2018) argue that the chaotic messiness of practice interventions is matched by disruptions in the delivery of youth justice services. Amidst this chaos, our research has highlighted the emergence of several innovative delivery models by way of adaptation to contemporary challenges and budget cuts in a neoliberal political climate (Smith and Gray, 2018). 'Targeted' models still implicitly rely on the identification of 'difference', as the starting point for intervention, rather than drawing on principles of normalisation and universalism as do 'children first' approaches.…”