Trend in Youth Justice Policy: Welfare versus Justice

The balance between the 'caring ethos' and the 'ethos of punishment' in youth Justice, results in a diverse and often contradictory policy domain.

The Last 50 years or so...

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.

Examples of Fractured Youth Justice Policy

Welfare’ and the 1960’s

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).

The courts were using custody more frequently, earlier in young people’s careers, and for less serious offences.

In stark contrast, the use of care orders and supervision orders declined.

Retreat from Welfare: 1970’s

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).

1980's: Politicising Youth Justice

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.

Contradiction:

Evidence of a bifurcation strategy in operation:

Divert ‘low-level’ offenders away from formally entering the system.

Focus more on serious and persistent offenders.

Despite this appearance, an increased use of punitive community punishments occurred, particularly Intermediate Treatment (IT's) orders, which demonstrated an increase in the proportion of juveniles cautioned and a decrease in the numbers sentenced to custody during this period.

Pratt (1990) draws attention to the conservatives overall concern with efficiency and values for money, and not the 'get tough' approach that they had emphasised in their manifesto.

Intermediate Treatment was always intended to provide welfare and needs focused intervention and to be made available to a broader range of children in trouble on a voluntary basis or as part of a formal Supervision Order (Haines, 1996)- in practice, local areas developed IT in different ways (local mediation of centralised practice requirements).

Further explanation for these responses to youth justice concerns political distraction.

A period characterised by Jones (1984) as a ‘successful revolution’ in youth justice, a similar set of changes were also taking place. These changes again occurred within the context of a Conservative government in power, with a similar social and political landscape consisting of:

Such social contexts served as a political distraction, where economic downturn and the rise of boom and bust industries were by far the big electoral issues of the time, with youth crime comparably low as a political priority.

The economic downturn of the mid-late 1970s meant that Thatcher’s first term as Prime Minister was subject to considerable curtailments on public spending, where youth justice featured as one such area where minimal financial resources were deployed.

Remember, custody is extremely costly and re-conviction rates are extremely high, so that the pragmatic logic would be to restrict the use of custody to a minority of ‘hard core’ offenders requiring punishment- Bifurcation!

Characterized by ‘circular motions’ (Goldson, 2015)

1991–1997: burgeoning punitiveness unfolded;

1998– 2008: a decade when such punitiveness consolidated and intensified;

2009–presently: a period characterized by discernible penal moderation in the youth justice sphere.

Evidenced by the huge reductions in those entering the system.

2009-Presently: Coalition and Conservatives

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.

Controversy

While the aggregate harm has probably declined, it has also been concentrated on those that remain.

Ethnic disproportionalities, for instance, have grown, with a larger proportion of black children and young people in the youth justice system.

Evidence of a bifurcation strategy in operation:

Divert ‘low-level’ offenders away from formally entering the system.

Focus more on serious and persistent offenders.

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).

The response to such coverage is often a knee-jerk response and leads to a shift in emphasis towards a small, core group.

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.

Almost every time the term “knife crime” appeared in the national press last year – it was referring to black kids in London.

In 2005, a report by the Barrow Cadbury Trust , ‘Lost in Transition’ suggested:

“Criminal justice policies in England and Wales do unnecessary damage to the life chances of young adult offenders and often make them more, not less, likely to re-offend. They make it harder for young adults to lead crime-free lives and exacerbate the widespread problems of social exclusion that other government policies aspire to ameliorate” (2015:9).

Youth justice as a system, is a relative construct.

The nature of youth justice is shaped by how a society chooses to define (construct) ‘youth offending’ at any given point in time, which in turn can influence how youth offending is explained, which in turn can influence how it is responded to through the philosophies, systems, structures, strategies, processes and practices that constitute youth justice.

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.

There are a number of consistent trends that define youth justice policy:

Complexities
Contradictions
Controversies

Throughout the development of the system of youth Justice, policy reform and developments in practice have rarely followed a linear trajectory.

Harris and Webb (1987:79) suggest the system is, "riddled with paradox, irony, even contradiction(...)exists as a function of the child are and criminal Justice system on either side of it, a meeting place of two otherwise separate worlds.

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