by Gillian Dickinson 5 years ago
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This mind map covers Section B, Question 3: Trends and Patterns in Youth Crime and Justice:
In order to engage explicitly with contemporary trends in youth justice, we need to undertake an examination of the direction of youth justice policy and practice and their relation to current trends and patterns within youth justice through rigorous scrutiny and interpretation of available evidence and data.
Juvenile Justice or youth justice practice has an especially complicated history, with widely divergent and sometimes patently contradictory tributaries flowing into the major policy and practice. Therefore, it is important to reflect upon the central themes and contested dynamics and attempt to understand that youth Justice as a system is a relative construct, often subject to the varying impulses and pressures of policy and law making.
Argument:
These themes centre around:
1. Complexities of process
2. Contradictions in practice
3. Controversies in policy making
The answer should aim to:
Juvenile Justice or youth justice practice has an especially complicated history, with widely divergent and sometimes patently contradictory tributaries flowing into the major policy and practice.
This can be understood through the ‘triad of youth justice’ (Case, 2018:2): a framework for understanding that sees definitions, explanations and responses as three interrelated and mutually-reinforcing elements working together in the social construction of youth justice.
Evidenced by the huge reductions in those entering the system.
2009-Presently: Coalition and Conservatives
Factors driving the high levels of arrests of BMAE children?
Howard league for Penal Reform (Child Arrests for England and Wales, 2017): Increased media coverage around knife crime and gang involvement, much of which has been focused on children from non-white backgrounds” (2017:4).
Almost every time the term “knife crime” appeared in the national press last year – it was referring to black kids in London.
Much of the media reporting and political comment has been misleading: - in part due to the paucity of reliable information on the problem - in part due to the failure to present known facts accurately.
The response to such coverage is often a knee-jerk response and leads to a shift in emphasis towards a small, core group.
Controversy
While the aggregate harm has probably declined, it has also been concentrated on those that remain.
Evidence of a bifurcation strategy in operation: Divert ‘low-level’ offenders away from formally entering the system. Focus more on serious and persistent offenders.
Ethnic disproportionalities, for instance, have grown, with a larger proportion of black children and young people in the youth justice system.
Unwinding and shrinking of the youth justice system
In aggregate terms, probably causing less harm than it was when the Barrow Cadbury Trust published Lost in Transition.
Contradiction:
Delinquents were no longer social casualties.
The White Paper titled 'Young Offender' (Home Office, 1980) shifted the emphasis from the 'child in need' to the 'juvenile criminal', culminating in the Criminal Justice Act, 1991. The act provided the appearance of a strong government with a tough on crime rhetoric.
As a result, the ‘welfare’ approach was gradually undermined by powerful sectors who had never fully supported it, such as the Conservative government:
Contradiction: Portions of the CYPA (1969) which were retained were attacked by police and magistrates, who argued that it left them powerless to deal adequately to deal with juvenile offenders and were able to play on the perception that delinquents were running wild.
Pearson (1983:217) points out that the apparent ‘crime wave’ was totally fictitious and occurred almost entirely from the changes in police practice.
The use of formal cautioning (which was recorded) increased, replacing the informal warnings before 1969 (which were not recorded).
The development of a welfare-based juvenile justice policy, culminating in the Children and Young Persons Act, 1963 and 1969 were based on a consensus:
Conflict: The Ingleby Committee (1956) was established to consider what new powers and duties could be given to local authorities to prevent the neglect of children in the home: the Ingleby Report recognised the inherent conflict when ‘justice’ and ‘welfare’ were pursued simultaneously in the same setting.
Only partial implementation of the CYPA, 1969 meant that ‘justice-based’ punitive responses (custody) reflected in the structural and organisational tensions between newly created social service departments and the juvenile youth courts- ‘classic welfare versus justice’ (Haines and Drakeford, 1998).
In stark contrast, the use of care orders and supervision orders declined.
The courts were using custody more frequently, earlier in young people’s careers, and for less serious offences.
For most of the eighteenth century (1700s) there was no concept of childhood in any recognizable modern sense. In other words, children tended to be expected to pass straight from physical dependence to something close to adulthood. The period of physical dependence was taken to last up to about age 7-10. After that most children were expected to work adult hours ... and if convicted of a crime were held fully responsible and punished as adults. In Britain and France the 1770s saw the gradual rise of the concept of an intermediate stage between physical dependence (infancy) and adulthood, namely childhood. The first books written specifically for children and some children's clothing began to appear for the first time. This development was largely confined to the middle classes, and for the poor it had to wait until well after 1850. The concept of adolescence - that is, a period between childhood and adulthood - is even more recent. I've deliberately avoided mentioning the Enlightenment, as the beginnings
Thus, within three decades we have moved from a system based on welfare priorities, care and treatment typified by the Children and Young Persons Act, 1969 to a system based on Justice, control and punishment following the Criminal Justice act, 1991.
