p. 69832. Youth justice in an age of uncertainty: principles, performance, and prospects
- Lesley McAra
Abstract
This chapter explores the principles, operational functioning, and impacts of the institutions which have evolved across the four nations in the United Kingdom to deal with children and young people who come into conflict with the law. A key aim of the chapter is to assess the social, political, and cultural conditions necessary to sustain more progressive approaches to youth justice, predicated on the best interests of the child. The chapter begins with a critique of the evolving normative framings of youth justice, both in terms of the international standards to which UK systems avowedly adhere and the shifting conceptual underpinnings of research and policy debates on young people who come into conflict with the law. It then explores the recent history of policy transformation across the four UK nations, a story of both divergent and convergent dynamics. Following this, the chapter considers the disjuncture which research has found between the ambition osentencf policy and the cultural practices of institutions which make up the youth justice system, highlighting a persistent tendency to recycle a client group of young people who are mostly poor, known to systems from an early age and disproportionately from Black and Minoritized Ethnic groups. The final part of the chapter offers some reflections on the futures of youth justice in a time of multiple and intersecting crises, and what needs to be done now to nurture and support children and young people: a holistic and generative approach to justice.
