‘How can you punish a child for something that happened over a year ago?’ The impacts of COVID-19 on child defendants and implication for youth courts

Published date01 August 2023
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/00220183231172432
AuthorSamuel Larner,Hannah Smithson
Date01 August 2023
How can you punish a child for
something that happened over a year
ago?The impacts of COVID-19 on
child defendants and implication for
youth courts
Samuel Larner and Hannah Smithson
Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Abstract
The project on which this paper is grounded is the f‌irst in-depth empirical study of the
impacts of COVID-19 on each stage of the English and Welsh Youth Justice System. We
take the notion of a childs right to a fair trial as the lens by which we detail the f‌indings
from our research. The pa per documents the e xperiences of prof essionals worki ng in the
courts and children who had contact with the courts during the pandemic. While we con-
centrate on processes in England and Wales as an exemplar of the impact of COVID-19,
recognising that globally, courts were experiencing similar challenges, initiates a discourse
about how to re-envision their role in wider criminal justice systems in a COVID-19
world. Our research demonstrates an urgent need for renewed consideration of what sup-
port children need to effectively participate in court, and where and how childrenscases
should be heard. The pandemic demonstrated that creativity is possible and creates a timely
opportunity to review the evidence and think more radically about a welfare-based, trauma-
informed court process for children.
Keywords
COVID-19, youth courts, empirical research, Crown Prosecution Service, defence solicitors,
children, legal advisors
Introduction
The project on which this paper is grounded is the f‌irst in-depth empirical study of the impacts of
COVID-19 on each stage of the English and Welsh Youth Justice System. The Greater Manchester
(GM) region of North-West England served as a case study area (as part of The Greater Manchester
Corresponding author:
Hannah Smithson, Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Email: h.l.smithson@mmu.ac.uk
Article
The Journal of Criminal Law
2023, Vol. 87(4) 252265
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00220183231172432
journals.sagepub.com/home/clj

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