Barry Goldson

Youth Crime, the 'Parenting Deficit' and State Intervention: A Contextual Critique

On 1 June 2000 a new court order was implemented in England and Wales. The Parenting Order provided for the extension of state intervention (primarily through youth justice agencies) into ‘family life’. We have recently completed research with regard to youth justice parenting initiatives, and during the course of our research, our interest in, and concern with, the broader question of ‘parenting’, ‘parental responsibility’ and the ‘parenting deficit’ consolidated. This article sets out our principal concerns by locating the new statutory powers within their wider context. By tracing their historical antecedents, theoretical foundations and policy expressions we aim to critique the latest developments in state intervention. Similarly, by analysing the material circumstances of the parents who are targeted by such intervention, and reviewing the means by which children, young people and parents conceive such intervention, we argue that the new powers essentially comprise an extension of punitiveness underpinned by stigmatising and pathologising constructions of working class families.

The sleep of (criminological) reason: Knowledge—policy rupture and New Labour’s youth justice legacy:

For over a decade, three successive New Labour administrations have subjected the English youth justice system to a seemingly endless sequence of reforms. At the root of such activity lies a core tension between measured reason and punitive emotion; between an expressed commitment to ‘evidence-based policy’ and a populist rhetoric of ‘tough’ correctionalism. By engaging a detailed analytical assessment of New Labour’s youth justice programme, this article advances an argument that the trajectory of policy has ultimately moved in a diametrically opposed direction to the route signalled by research-based knowledge and practice-based evidence. Moreover, such knowledge— policy rupture has produced a youth justice system that ultimately comprises a conduit of social harm. All of this raises serious questions of knowledge/evidence—policy relations and, more fundamentally, of democracy, power and accountability.

Rethinking Youth Justice: Comparative Analysis, International Human Rights and Research Evidence

Derived from a more ambitious international youth justice research project, this article aims to critically interrogate the direction of contemporary youth justice policy in England and Wales and the political priorities that underpin it. By rethinking youth justice on the basis of comparative analysis, international human rights and research evidence, we challenge the current policy trajectory and offer an alternative formulation: a youth justice with integrity.

Sociological criminology and youth justice: Comparative policy analysis and academic intervention

This article is presented in two interconnected parts. It addresses issues that have arguably received insufficient attention in most sociologically oriented criminological research and commentary on youth justice and related policy and practice developments, both within the UK jurisdictions and in wider international contexts. First, it highlights the need to recognize the complexities of comparative policy analysis at international, national, regional and local levels. Second, in the light of such complexity, the article attempts to explore the challenges confronting social science in general and sociological criminology in particular, in efforts to critically inform policymaking processes. In conclusion, it is suggested that the possibilities for vibrant, critical and publicly engaged academic intervention in the youth justice policy sphere rest upon the mobilization of theoretically and empirically based analyses, together with research-informed proposals for policy formation and practice development.

Child Imprisonment: A Case for Abolition

In England and Wales the politicisation of crime and criminal justice policy in general, and youth crime and youth justice policy in particular, has given rise to a USA-inspired ‘new punitiveness’. Penal expansion and substantial growth in the population of child prisoners has consolidated. This article subjects child imprisonment to critical analysis by referring to: the damage and harm that it imposes; its spectacular failings in terms of youth crime prevention and community safety; and the enormous burden that it imposes on the public purse. Ultimately, there can be no rational justification for child imprisonment on the scale currently evident in England and Wales and, on this basis, a case is made for its abolition.

Unsafe, unjust and harmful to wider society: Grounds for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales

This article assesses critically the means by which social (symbolic) and statutory (institutionalized) constructions of child ‘offenders’ in England and Wales intersect and underpin processes of responsibilization and adultification. It is argued that securing immunity from prosecution should be the principal driver for raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility. In this sense the analysis is less concerned with questions of capacity and mens rea and more interested in: compliance with international human rights standards; modelling a system of justice that is broadly compatible with law, policy and practice in Europe (and elsewhere); ensuring that criminal law coheres with civil law; minimizing social harm and obtaining the best outcomes for children in conflict with the law, the wider community and the general public in respect of crime prevention and community safety. Finally, the prospects for such progressive reform within a context of heightened politicization are considered.

‘Time for a Fresh Start’, but is this it? A Critical Assessment of The Report of the Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour

In 2010, the Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour published a major report entitled Time for a Fresh Start (Independent Commission on Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour, 2010). The Commission’s report exposes the youth justice system in England and Wales to critical scrutiny. During the course of its inquiries the Commission consulted with, and/or received ‘evidence’ from, over 170 individuals and organizations. At the conclusion of the same inquiries, the report was published alongside a companion volume entitled A New Response to Youth Crime (Smith, 2010). The titles of the report and its accompanying book leave little to the imagination; the Commission clearly believes that a ‘fresh start’ and/or a ‘new response’ to youth crime and youth justice are needed in England and Wales. Informed by a long-term research project centred on national and international youth justice theory, law, policy and practice, this article focuses exclusively upon the Commission’s report and subjects it to critical assessment. Whilst endorsing the Commission’s perceived need for change, the article presents a detailed critique of its ‘alternative’ vision. It concludes by raising core questions pertaining to youth justice policy formation and the politics of policy influence.

International human rights standards and child imprisonment: Potentialities and limitations

This article explores critically the relationship between international human rights standards and the practices of child imprisonment at a global level. Four key issues are afforded close attention: the separation of child and adult prisoners; the provision of ‘child appropriate regimes’; the protection of child prisoners’ rights and the operation of independent complaints and inspection mechanisms. We argue that there is manifest tension between international human rights standards and the practical realities of child imprisonment. Whilst we recognise the vital potentialities of the human rights standards – to pacify the more problematic excesses of child imprisonment – we also remain cognisant of their practical limitations and reserve a sense of scepticism in respect of the concept of ‘rights-based approaches’ to the penal detention of children. Ultimately, we challenge the legitimacy of child imprisonment and recommend its abolition.

Dictionary of Youth Justice

List of entries. List of contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Dictionary of Youth Justice. Directory of agencies.

The Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility: Clinical, Criminological/Sociological, Developmental and Legal Perspectives

One of the most complex, contested and controversial questions confronting modern juvenile/youth justice systems concerns the minimum age of criminal responsibility: the age at which a child is deemed to be sufficiently ‘mature’ to be held responsible before the substantive criminal law. In the three UK jurisdictions − England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland − the minimum age of criminal responsibility falls significantly below the European average. In England and Wales, for example, the largest UK jurisdiction by some distance, children are held to be fully responsible in criminal proceedings once they reach the age of 10 years. The legitimacy, or otherwise, of exposing such young children to the full weight of criminal law is increasingly a source of lively debate, attracting interest from a broad range of stakeholders. It is timely, therefore, to subject the minimum age of criminal responsibility to analytical scrutiny. It is within this context that the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Adolescent Forensic Psychiatry Special Interest Group took the initiative, in October 2012, to convene a conference in order to explore the question of criminal responsibility from different disciplinary perspectives: clinical, criminological/sociological, developmental and legal. The substantive articles that form the basis of this ‘special issue’ began life at that conference. They have since been developed and subjected to peer review and what follows is an attempt to open up an informed inter-disciplinary discussion. It is no coincidence, given the low minimum ages of criminal responsibility that prevail, that each article centres its analytical focus on youth justice jurisdictions within the UK. That being said, each article also draws upon a wide-ranging international literature in addressing questions that extend far beyond any single, and nationally bounded, juris492050 YJJ13210.1177/1473225413492050Youth JusticeChurch et al. 2013