Editorial
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/147322540200200301 |
| Author | Barry Goldson |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Editorial
In previous editorials for this journal I have commented upon the energetic policy context
within which contemporary youth justice practice is located. Furthermore, in tandem with the
ever-changing policy terrain, child ‘offenders’ retain a high profile in the media, and the
significant purchase that they apparently exercise in relation to public fear and anxiety endures.
Against this backdrop, the general thrust of policy with regard to children who transgress the
law, and the impatient public mood that is said to sustain it, continues to concern child welfare
agencies, children’s rights organisations and penal reform groups. There is a burgeoning sense
in which this might apply – albeit to a greater or lesser extent – to most, perhaps all, of the
world’s advanced industrial states. Nonetheless, the specificities of youth justice law, policy and
practice in England and Wales, together with the apparently unforgiving tendencies of public
opinion, are particularly troubling. With one of the youngest ages of criminal responsibility in
Europe, and almost the highest rate of child incarceration in the continent, the ‘no more
excuses’ imperatives that were first established by the New Labour government on coming to
power in 1997 (Home Office, 1997), continue to characterise ‘modern’ youth justice in at least
one of the three UK criminal jurisdictions. Indeed, it is for this very reason that youth justice
developments in England and Wales continue to attract critical attention from a wide range of
sources, including the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
In January 1995, when the UNCRC reported for the first time on the extent to which
relevant law, policy and practice in the UK complied with the provisions of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (which the UK government had formally ratified in
1991), the findings were not positive. In particular, the youth justice system in England and
Wales was found to be wanting, and amongst the UNCRC’s wide-ranging proposals it
recommended that ‘serious consideration’ should be given to raising the age of criminal
responsibility. This recommendation was ignored. In the most recent report published by the
UNCRC (2002) in respect of the UK therefore, it is profoundly disappointing, although not
at all surprising, to observe that attention once again focuses on the question of criminal
minority in England and Wales, and the Committee unequivocally recommends that the
government should ‘considerably raise the age of criminal responsibility’ (ibid, para 58(b), my
emphasis). It is thus extraordinarily ironic, and even more disappointing, that just over two
weeks after the publication of the UNCRC report on 4 October 2002, the Youth Justice Board
for England and Wales announced plans to implement up to ten new pilot schemes to ‘target’
children as young as eight who are adjudged to be ‘at risk of offending’ (Youth Justice Board,
2002). Although this initiative is packaged as a ‘preventive’ strategy, it can just as readily be
conceived as the criminalisation of children who have yet to reach the age of criminal
responsibility; as a ‘backdoor’ means of effectively lowering the age of criminal minority by
drawing a significantly younger constituency of children into the formal youth justice apparatus.
The piloting of these so-called ‘pre-crime’ initiatives, is the latest expression of the increasingly
interventionist – and arguably criminalising – priorities which characterise modern youth justice
policy and practice in England and Wales.
It is quite fitting therefore, that the first two articles published in this issue of the journal
focus upon early intervention, and the third engages with the broader correctionalist tendencies
intrinsic to contemporary policy and practice responses to children in trouble. All three articles
attempt to chart a direction for the development of best practice.
By critically exploring the processes that led to the abolition of cautioning, Tim Bateman
raises a series of concerns with regard to the interventionist scope of the new system of Final
Warnings. He reviews emerging evidence and research findings in relation to ‘outcomes’, and
concludes that whilst the Warnings provide for increased levels of formal intervention and a
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