Engaging Youth in Youth Justice Interventions: Well-being and Accountability
| Author | Jackie Sanders,Mark Henaghan,Samuel Henry,Robyn Munford |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1473225414562636 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
Youth Justice
2015, Vol. 15(3) 240 –255
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225414562636
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Engaging Youth in Youth Justice
Interventions: Well-being and
Accountability
Samuel Henry, Mark Henaghan, Jackie Sanders
and Robyn Munford
Abstract
This article argues that youth justice interventions which combine both accountability and well-being
components (comprehensive) are most likely to be effective in terms of improving quality of life of youth
and reducing the likelihood of reoffending. It also argues that effective interventions are those that actively
engage youth and their families in the development of plans and in intervention processes (engagement). It
draws on two case studies from a large national mixed-methods study: The Pathways to Resilience research
programme.
Keywords
accountability, desistance, engagement, relationships, welfare/well-being
Introduction
The New Zealand system for dealing with young offenders has been remarked upon inter-
nationally since the enactment of the Children Young Person and their Families Act (the
Act) in 1989 (Watt, 2003). It is recognised as marking a watershed in approaches to youth
offending. The processes and procedures it defines for managing youth offending, par-
ticularly the Family Group Conference (FGC), which seeks to actively involve youth and
their families, and the extensive use of diversion, have been adopted in other jurisdictions
(Lynch, 2012).
Lynch (2012) explains the youth justice provisions in the New Zealand Act contain a
tension ‘between the need to safeguard the future well-being of the young person and the
public interest in holding young people accountable for crimes’ (p. 22). This is not unu-
sual; indeed, tensions between the principles of justice and welfare in youth justice
Corresponding author:
Jackie Sanders, School of Health and Social Services, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North 4442,
New Zealand.
Email: j.sanders@massey.ac.nz
562636YJJ0010.1177/1473225414562636Youth JusticeHenry et al.
research-article2014
Article
Henry et al. 241
systems have been the subject of much debate for many years internationally (Longford
Committee, 1964; Muncie, 2008; Smith, 2005). Smith (2005) notes that while at a policy
level youth justice matters in the United Kingdom tend to be framed in terms of these twin
imperatives (accountability and welfare), welfarist principles find expression primarily at
the level of interventions focused on specific subpopulations of youth:
the new welfare elements of the system were generally employed with a younger age group of,
for example, low-school-achievers, ‘wayward girls’ and truants from ‘problem’ families
designated as ‘pre-delinquent’ … (Muncie, 1999: 260)
Goldson and Muncie (2012) situate this justice-welfare tension in a global context,
suggesting that international human rights instruments articulate welfare principles, such
as the need for countries to act with reference to the best interests of the child, while at
the level of individual states a ‘new punitiveness’ seems to be emerging (p. 47). They
point to a neo-liberal governance discourse influencing the youth justice agenda which
is shaped by notions of responsibilisation; that is, the expectation that irrespective of the
pressures and limitations imposed on them by contextual factors, youth are autonomous
and self-governing. Muncie and Hughes (2002) suggest that the neo-liberal discourse
contains the welfare-accountability tension in terms of how young offenders are seen as;
on the one hand, needing to be held accountable for their actions, while, on the other
hand, they are understood to be vulnerable to the impact of contextual risk factors beyond
their control that may be instrumental in their offending. However, responsibilisation
does not only manifest itself in the accountability aspects of youth justice procedures. It
can equally be detected in the well-being components of these processes. For instance,
when failure to participate or succeed in programmes designed to address well-being
needs (such as counselling) is attributed to individual failings or insufficient motivation
in the youth concerned rather than the appropriateness or accessibility of services, or the
impact of other stresses and risks around youth and over which they have little control
(Liebenberg et al., 2013).
An additional issue in debates regarding the balance between the accountability and
well-being principles in youth justice is the fact that children and adolescents coming into
the justice system as offenders can also be victims and, as victims, may have been subject
to multiple injustices (Goldson and Muncie, 2012: 57). In this regard, the equal status
afforded to both principles in the New Zealand legislation is important because it enables
youth justice processes to address youth simultaneously as offenders and victims, poten-
tially leading to more just solutions that also provide meaningful opportunities for youth
to craft new identities which do not involve ongoing offending.
While the wording of New Zealand’s Act provides scope for young offenders to be
treated victims as well as offenders, a key test of legislative effectiveness is the extent to
which such principles find expression in practice. Delivery of effective interventions is
not straightforward however:
desistance is a complex interactional process (McNeill, 2006) which results from the
simultaneous interplay of subjective changes in youth perception of their life chances and
objective changes in their social situation. (Gray, 2011: 237)
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