This chapter evaluates the alternative means of responding to offenders and their crimes which have emerged in criminal justice and have been gaining wider recognition. Those who favour innovations of this kind tend to reject conventional assumptions and approaches, proposing new principles for the operation of the justice system. The chapter considers two distinct but similar challenges to conventional models of justice which have developed from this viewpoint: restorative justice and diversion. Restorative justice is based on the presumption that dealing with crime is a process rather than a single act or decision, that it involves collaboration between those with a stake in the offence, and that it emphasises healing as well as ‘putting things right’. Diversionary interventions, which can include community service, restitution, and education, as well as elements of restorative practice, provide an opportunity for the offender to avoid criminal charges or formal judicial processes, albeit sometimes by meeting certain conditional requirements.
Chapter
30. Alternatives to punishment
Chapter
7. Policing Mental Disorder
This chapter examines the role of the police, both as agents of the criminal justice system and as agents of the mental health system. It discusses the policy of diversion; police encounters with mentally disordered persons; the diversion of mentally disordered criminal suspects into an investigative regime with greater safeguards than are ordinarily implemented; and the meaning of ‘absent without leave’.
Chapter
6. Instead of punishment?
Restorative justice, child welfare, and medical treatment
This chapter looks at three very different aspects of sentencing and punishment where there are alternatives to a focus on proportional sentencing and punishment. We discuss two sets of offenders where the court does not have to sentence strictly in line with just deserts. So we focus on children and young people under 18 years of age and examine the policies developed over the past century which have taken into account the welfare of the child, such that diversion from prosecution has been justified and strict proportionality of penal response can be modified. We also focus on those offenders who are deemed to be mentally disordered and review those options available to the sentencing court which focus on treatment rather than punishment. However the chapter begins by looking at an alternative rationale and approach for responding to those who commit offences—restorative justice—and reviewing policy and practice developments. Finally, the chapter provides reflective exercises for all three (potential) alternatives to punishment.
Chapter
6. Instead of punishment?
Restorative justice, child welfare, and medical treatment
This chapter looks at three aspects of sentencing and punishment which—though very different—potentially offer alternatives to a focus on punishment. It first discusses an alternative rationale and approach for responding to those who commit offences, restorative justice and then discusses two sets of offenders where the court does not have to sentence strictly in line with just deserts. So it focuses on children and young people under 18 years of age and examines the policies developed to take into account the welfare of the child, such as diversion from prosecution and a modified approach to strict proportionality of penal responses. Next the chapter focuses on those offenders who are deemed to be mentally disordered and reviews those options available to the sentencing court which focus on treatment rather than punishment. Finally, the chapter provides reflective exercises for all three (potential) alternatives to punishment.
Chapter
41. Youth justice
Lesley McAra
This chapter explores the founding principles, operational functioning and impact 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. It takes as its principal empirical focus the shifting patterns of control that have emerged over the past twenty years—a period characterized by a persistent disjuncture between normative claims about youth justice, evolving policy discourse, and the impact of youth justice practices on the lives of young people. The chapter concludes by arguing that, unless there is better alignment between these dimensions, justice for children and young people cannot and will never be delivered.
