Barry, M. and McNeill, F. (Eds.) (2009) Youth Offending and Youth Justice
Barry, M. and McNeill, F. (Eds.) (2009) Youth Offending and Youth Justice
Barry, M. and McNeill, F. (Eds.) (2009) Youth Offending and Youth Justice
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conditions within which offending emerges, often alongside and sometimes because of, other social problems. The majority of young people embroiled in youth justice systems are disadvantaged, in terms of education, levels of poverty and marginalisation from mainstream opportunities, and those with the added label of ethnic minority or mental health needs are doubly disadvantaged, being disproportionately represented in youth justice s ystems. Stigmatisation of young people is enacted through familiar labelling processes and the attendant social reactions and, also, more subtly, in the form of risk assessment procedures which are increasingly used to predict the risks posed by children and young people with problematic behaviours and to govern interventions with them. Such methods of risk assessment are often inaccurate but are nonetheless used increasingly to justify and determine the extent of intrusion into the lives of young people. Critically, this means that stigma is connected not only to what has been done by young p eople but a lso to dubious judgements about what they may do.
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This is a kind of prospective s tigmatisation of perceived riskiness, a sort of pseudo- scientific identification of bad character, rather than a mere question of bad conduct.
practices which, ironically, have recently been promoted in the youth justice field (Cavadino and Dignan 2006).
Responsibilisation
In
some
jurisdictions,
policymakers
have
latched
onto
the
possibility
that
young
people
choose
to
commit
crimes
for
purely
personal
reasons
and
the
naive
suggestion
that
(only)
by
cognitive
behavioural
training
will
young
people
learn
that
crime
does
not
necessarily
pay.
Young
people
are
seen
as,
in
effect,
wholly
to
blame
for
youth
crime
and
they
and
increasingly
their
families
are
made
responsible
for
their
own
b ehaviour
and
their
own
rehabilitation,
or
as
Maruna
and
King
(Chapter
6,
this
volume)
describe
it,
their
own
redeemability.
This
focus
on
the
individualisation
of
the
problem
and
responsibilisation
of
the
youthful
actor
has
been
equated
by
several
contributors
to
this
volume
with
criminalisation
at
a
younger
age,
increased
punishment,
more
intrusive
interventions,
a
greater
use
of
imprisonment
for
young
people
and
a
policy
rationale
which
d enies
the
need
for
structural
social
change.
Risk
assessment
in
this
process
of
responsibilisation
targets
only
the
criminogenic
needs
or
dynamic
risk
factors
(rather
than
the
developmental
needs)
of
young
offenders,
and
neglects
both
the
socio- structural
contexts
of
these
factors
and
the
risks
posed
to
young
offenders
from
the
wider
environment.
As
Phoenix
( Chapter
7,
this
volume)
points
out,
responsibilisation
of
young
people
is
an
excuse
for
the
lack
of
responsibilisation
of
policymakers
to
address
the
wider
needs
of
young
people
in
trouble.
In
addition
to
the
dangers
of
such
approaches
to
the
individual,
there
is
a
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more generalised threat here too the threat of damaging the collective efficacy of communities and of society itself by colluding in the all too familiar process of setting us (law-abiding adults) against them (feral youth), a depressingly familiar process of distancing and dissociating which is exemplified in many social fields b eyond those concerned with youth crime and justice. To the extent that the responsibilisation of the deviant represents an exoneration of the (apparently) conformist, it is a dagger in the heart not only of collective social responsibility but also of social and community cohesion.
engagement may all too often exacerbate rather than a lleviate youth crime.
Problematic
Responses
Because
young
people
are
blamed
for
their
own
predicament,
punishment
is
seen
as
more
appropriate
than
offering
welfare
oriented
alternatives.
But
this
can
obviously
prove
counterproductive.
Less
help
and
more
punishment,
in
many
young
offenders
eyes,
leads
to
more
offending
and
less
concern
for
the
consequences.
Too
often
they
have
no
stake
in
the
future
to
protect
through
conforming
and
see
no
feasible
means
of
acquiring
one.
Equally,
managerialised
systems
and
practices
result
in
even
welfare
practitioners
being
confined
to
criminal
justice
interventions
at
the
expense
of
negotiating
wider
structural
opportunities
for
young
p eople.
The
desistance
literature,
reference
to
which
seasons
this
collection,
suggests
that
young
offenders
will
respond
positively
to
relationships
with
professionals
that
are
deemed
legitimate,
encouraging
and
fair.
However,
approaches
that
are
punitive,
dogmatic,
coercive
or
even
just
standardised
and
lacking
in
human
warmth
and
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of a meaningful and informed public debate about how we understand youth crime, as well as thorough-going re- engagement with the principled basis of youth justice. Both discussions would require brave, bold and astute political leadership, as well as a commitment to engage from the relevant professions and the rest of civil society, and indeed some mechanism for engaging young people themselves. As Maruna and King (Chapter 6) point out, if the public have a greater awareness of the external influences on offending, they will be less likely to fear, condemn and give up on young p eople. Interrogation of the evidence about what works? necessarily leads us towards moral questions about whats right?. McNeill (chapter 8) argues that supervision needs to give greater precedence to relationships between young people, professionals and others, not least when such relationships are crucial to reducing offending. But beyond reducing offending, he suggests that if youth justice is to be legitimate (and thus effective) it cannot but attend to the injustices that many young offenders have suffered. Overall, there is a n eed to remember that youth justice in and of itself can have only a limited effect on youth crime because too many of the real drivers of youth crime those drivers that reside in the fabric of our late-modern societies and the inequalities that they perpetuate are beyond its reach. Herein lies both the paradox and the ultimate solution; youth justice is the answer to youth crime but only in the sense that were we ever to arrive at a society that did justice to and by its children and young people, that really acted as if Every Child Mattered, that genuinely ordered its affairs so as to secure children and young peoples
health, safety, achievement, positive involvement and economic wellbeing, then we would find ourselves in a society much less troubled by youth crime. It is impossible to resist the temptation, in thinking about the proper policy response here, to note the alacrity and seemingly limitless largesse with which government can rise to the challenge of rescuing the financial system from its current crisis with our money and apparently in all of our collective interests. If the collectivisation of risks can work for capital, perhaps it can be made to work for young people too.
Further
Information
Further
resources
on
youth
offending
and
the
youth
justice
system,
as
well
as
information
on
a
range
of
other
crime
and
justice
topics,
can
be
found
at www.sccjr.ac.uk.