Youth Justice System

1973 Words4 Pages

Youth justice is a controversial subject as many believe there is no neutral English noun which can identify a period of youth with the same certainty as ‘child’ or ‘adult’ (Springhall 1983, cited in Muncie, p.2). Youth crime is also an evolving social concept. Society adapts to things that have happened, for example, laws are often passed after a big event such as a moral panic. Therefore our current youth justice system in England and Wales is comprised of many theories, acts and events that have been experienced over the last two centuries. This paper will look at the key historical influences on the evolution of the youth justice system, taking in to account political influences and a range of theories; looking at the objectives of the …show more content…

Children were imprisoned with adults, however the 1802 Factory Acts which was a series of Acts of Parliament passed to limit the number of hours worked by women and children saw the concept of childhood gradually move from ‘small adult’ onto the child needing protection and nurturing. In 1818 cobbler, John Pounds, began to use his shop to introduce educational activity for poor local children that had been neglected by other institutions - this started the ragged school movement, these schools ‘not only provided educational opportunity but a concrete base for development’ (Smith, M K. 2001). 1854 saw a change in the understanding of childhood, there was a transformation towards their true treatment as children and the concept of juvenile delinquency was introduced; Mary Carpenter believed that children were wrongly blamed for the failings of their parents and that juvenile delinquency had many causes but the main one is failure of moral education. Carpenter's research contributed to the Youthful Offenders Act 1854 which extended the …show more content…

The YJB provides a central leadership for youth justice services by monitoring youth offending team performance, delivering improvement support and intervention to the poorest performing YOTs, maintaining effective relationships with YOTs and identifying poor performance - there are currently eight regional offices in England and a National Office for Wales, all of which have a regional manager who is responsible for overseeing the YOTs in their region; these managers take care of staff and resources, they allocate work, drive up performance and develop and maintain partner relationships. A YOT has statutory partners which include: the local authority, police, the probation service and health and they work with this range of services as a ‘multi-agency team’, these work on a local level and are made up of a leader and various staff. The teams must have a strong team identity and must have scope to engage in work with services at a range of levels, all roles are clear and must be understood. The ‘Every Child Matters’ legislation strengthened requirements for agencies to work together more closely, this was in response to the lack of communication which led to the horrific death of Victoria Climbie.

More about Youth Justice System

Open Document