‘There Must be Some Way of Dealing with Kids’: Young Offenders, Public Attitudes and Policy Change

Abstract

New Labour’s youth justice reforms have left progressives disappointed by a failure to take more radical steps to raise the age of criminal responsibility and phase out penal custody. This paper argues that the basic punitive orientation governing youth justice policy was established in the early 1990s, in the wake of concern about persistent juvenile offenders and the high-profile James Bulger case. The punitive orientation of policy is apparently supported by public opinion, or at least the perception of public opinion held by policy makers. The paper summarises what is known about public attitudes to adult and juvenile offenders and suggests a strategy to increase understanding and raise the level of debate, which are prerequisites for any fundamental change in policy orientation.

The Views of the Public on Youth Offenders and the New Zealand Criminal Justice System

“…General findings of support for rehabilitation being among the most common themes are consistent with results of previous research (Allen, 2002;Piquero & Steinberg, 2010) as well as recent New Zealand public opinion polls. The finding of non-victims being over-represented in the expression of more punitive opinions regarding youth offenders is consistent with research on crime salience.…”

“…The themes of public perceptions of crime and punishment are by no means rare in international literature. Allen (2002) summarised what was known at the time about public opinion toward crime and youth offenders in Britain. Results of opinion polls reflected a strongly punitive opinion among the British public, with 70% responding affirmatively to questions on the need for harsher sentences and 75% of people believing that the criminal justice system was too lenient (Mattinson, Mirrlees-Black, & Britain, 2000).…”

Damage, Harm and Death in Child Prisons in England and Wales: Questions of Abuse and Accountability

“…Whilst it is always necessary to exercise some care in reading, analysing and interpreting official crime statistics (Bateman 2006;Coleman and Moynihan 1996), such figures certainly appear to challenge populist constructions of burgeoning child lawlessness, widespread moral breakdown and rampant 'yob culture'. There is apparent dissonance between perception and reality, and the public's fears and anxieties are falsely inflated when measured in terms of the actual incidence and gravity of youth crime (Allen 2002;Hancock 2004;Hough and Roberts 2004). The primary significance of this, at least for the purposes here, is that it raises serious questions with regard to the politics of 'toughness', the (il)legitimacy of the 'new punitiveness' (Goldson 2002a) and the intrinsic (ir)rationality of contemporary youth justice policy.…”

Popularism and Punishment or Rights and Rehabilitation? Electoral Discourse and Structural Policy Narratives on Youth Justice: Westminster Elections, 1964−2010

“…As Goldson (1997: 79) noted, the policy agenda was shaped by ‘conditions of “moral panic” within which policy and practice has been refocused upon punishment, retribution and the wholesale incarceration of children’. Thus as Allen (2002: 5) concludes:… the combined effect of increasing concerns raised by the most senior police officers and elements from the judiciary; almost obsessive media interest in crime with particular stress on violent crime, the sensational and the extreme; and a developing sense of fear within the public, exercised a very substantial influence over politicians and policy-makers.…”