Tim Bateman

‘We Now Breach More Kids in a Week Than We Used to in a Whole Year’: The Punitive Turn, Enforcement and Custody

The high rates of child incarceration that have characterized the youth justice system in England and Wales for almost two decades are frequently attributed to the impact of a punitive turn in the early part of the 1990s. While previous authors have considered the mediating influence of legislative shifts and changing patterns of sentencer decision-making, it has nonetheless been argued that analyses of the mechanisms that link punitivism and youth custody remain underdeveloped. The current article focuses on the role of enforcement as an indicator of changes in youth justice practitioner culture to explore how practice has become less tolerant in the face of a harsher environment towards children in conflict with the law.

Who Pulled the Plug? Towards an Explanation of the Fall in Child Imprisonment in England and Wales

This article offers an analysis of the recent fall in youth custody in England and Wales. It argues that parallels can be drawn between the present period and the decline in child imprisonment during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the 1980s. In particular, increased diversion and a depoliticization of youth crime have contributed to a more tolerant decision making within the court arena. Some remarks on the implications for an understanding of the punitive turn are offered and an assessment of the prospect for future trends is provided in the light of the riots of August 2011.

Youth Justice News

In line with that commitment, revised ‘trial’ national standards have been produced by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales intended to increase practitioner flexibility. The trial commenced on 1 April 2012, but youth offending teams (YOTs) have a six month period of grace in which to prepare for implementation if they do not wish to avail themselves of the new provisions immediately. An evaluation will then be undertaken in the second half of 2012/13 with a view to making recommendations to Crispin Blunt, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Youth Justice, in March 2013. All the changes relate to services provided in the community and guidance for children in custody will remain unchanged for the present. The intention is to review these latter standards during the course of the year, in consultation with the sector, with a view to incorporating appropriate revisions for the secure estate into the recommendations to be presented to the Minister in 2013. The reduction in prescription inevitably means that the trial standards are substantially shorter than the 2010 edition which they replace (55 pages and 136 pages respectively). But it might be noted that they are, nonetheless, considerably longer (and accordingly more onerous) than the adult National Standards for the Management of

Punishing Poverty: The Scaled Approach and Youth Justice Practice

The scaled approach, which provides the framework for determining levels of intervention for children in conflict with the law in England and Wales, might be seen as a logical culmination of the penetration of youth justice by a risk-averse policy and practice. This article questions the extent to which the model is compliant with childrens human rights and argues that constructing intervention through the lens of risk is likely to be incompatible with the effective engagement of children in trouble.

Reducing Child Imprisonment: A Systemic Challenge1

This article seeks to make explicit the obstacles to reducing child custody in order to understand better what is required of an effective decarcerative strategy. It argues that a punitive turn, with its origins in the early 1990s, was responsible both for a subsequent inflation of the numbers of children in custodial establishments and for a range of systemic changes which serve to maintain the population of the juvenile secure estate at high levels. Thus, although recent efforts to reduce custody have tended to focus on provision of robust and credible community based programmes, rates of diversion, shifts in the tariff and movements in practitioner attitude are as important as programmatic concerns to the success, or otherwise, of initiatives designed to function as alternatives to custody.

Living with Final Warnings: Making the Best of a Bad Job?

This article examines the final warning scheme from a number of perspectives. In the first place it considers the rationale for the abolition of police cautioning for children and young people and subjects it to critique. It then reviews the recent evidence that has a bearing on the likely impact of the scheme in terms of the prevention of offending. Finally, some unintended consequences of the new system, with particular reference to its implementation, are identified, and some related observations regarding the potential implications for practitioners are discussed.

“Catching them young” – some reflections on the meaning of the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the tension between government protestations that youth justice policy is evidence-led and what the evidence implies in the context of the age of criminal responsibility. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a conceptual analysis of government policy and the evidence base. Findings – The paper concludes that the current low age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales can be understood as a manifestation of the influence of underclass theory on successive governments. Research limitations/implications – The paper is not based on primary research. Practical implications – The arguments adduced help to explain the reluctance of government to countenance any increase in the age of criminal responsibility. Social implications – The analysis might help inform approaches adopted by youth justice policy makers, practitioners and academics with an interest in seeking a rise in the age of criminal responsibility. Originality/value – The ...

‘Target practice’: sanction detection and the criminalisation of children

Abstract In the tick-box culture that has come to dominate the criminal justice world, some performance measures appear to have more influence on outcomes than others. The Youth Justice Boards (YJBs) target to effect a 10% reduction in the number of children in custody, in the three years from April 2005, remains unmet. At the end of March 2008, the juvenile secure population had risen by 10% over the relevant period, and – at 2,942 – stood at 22% above the figure of 2,408 required by the measure. By contrast, the Governments target to increase the number of ‘offences brought to justice’ (OBTJ), from 1.025m in 2002 to 1.25m in 2007/08, has proved rather easier to meet. In the year ending June 2007, 1.434m offences were dealt with by way of a recognised ‘sanction detection’ (reprimand, warning, caution, cannabis warning, penalty notice for disorder, charge or summons), a rise of 43% over the 2002 baseline (Home Office, 2007).

Youth justice news [April 2018]

In January 2016, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, commissioned David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham in London, to lead a review of the treatment of, and outcomes for, black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups (BAME) in the criminal justice system in England and Wales. The final report of the review, published in September 2017, concludes that the progress that minority ethnic groups have made in other walks of life has not been replicated in the justice system where ‘those who are charged, tried and punished are still disproportionately likely to come from minority communities’. Lammy acknowledges that this pattern in not unique to England and Wales. In France, Muslims make up between a quarter and a half of those in prison despite being only 8 percent of the general population; in New Zealand, indigenous people constitute 15 percent of the total population but account for more than half of those in custody. Despite such similar patterns, disproportionality is particularly stark in England and Wales to the extent that, while absolute numbers are much smaller, the overrepresentation of minority ethnic people in prison is higher than in the United States. Most of the report focuses on the adult justice system, but Lammy maintains that the biggest concerns found by the review relate to the youth justice system. While there have been substantial reductions in the number of children entering the youth justice system for the first time, and a corresponding decline in the population of the children’s custodial estate, these trends have not advantaged all young people to the same extent. Indeed, over the past decade, the proportion of first time entrants from a BAME background rose from 11 to 19 percent; the representation of minority ethnic groups in custody has grown even more rapidly from 25 to 41 percent. An economic analysis undertaken to support the review provides an estimate of the additional costs to the public purse of BAME overrepresentation, based on comparing the ethnic minority composition of those within the justice system with that of the general

Promoting shifts in personal narratives and providing structures of support : transitions of incarcerated children in England and Wales

Recidivism rates for children leaving custody in England and Wales have remained stubbornly high, despite intense policy interest and some promising short-term initiatives. In this chapter, it is argued that the major challenge to improved outcomes has been the widespread failure of service providers to adopt lessons from research. This failure, we maintain, has been due to the lack of a conceptual understanding of how resettlement intervention effects positive change in children, leading to confusion as to service aims and what good practice looks like. Based on the existing knowledge base, from a 6-year study entitled, Beyond Youth Custody, it was concluded that effective resettlement should be reconceptualized as personal and practical support, that facilitates a shift in the child’s personal narrative from pro-criminal to pro-social. Five characteristics for practice necessary to promote this shift are identified, which are compared to the Taxonomy for Transition Programming 2.0.