‘If You Don’t Let Us In, We’ll Get Arrested’: Class-cultural Dynamics in the Provision of, and Resistance to, Youth Justice Work
| Author | Jonathan Ilan |
| Published date | 01 April 2010 |
| Date | 01 April 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225409356760 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Corresponding author:
Dr Jonathan Ilan, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 2NF, Kent, UK.
Email: J.Ilan@kent.ac.uk
‘If You Don’t Let Us In, We’ll
Get Arrested’: Class-cultural
Dynamics in the Provision of, and
Resistance to, Youth Justice Work
Jonathan Ilan
University of Kent, UK
Abstract
Based on an ethnographic account of a youth justice project and its attendees, this article explores the
tensions between culturally mediated constructions of appropriateness, both in terms of youth behaviour
and state responses thereto. It argues that, through youth justice work, the state attempts to inculcate
idealized behavioural expectations ‘downwards’ on those constructed as normatively imperilled. By contrast,
client youth construct their conduct in light of their classed and gendered experiences of marginality, which
prompt them towards resistance. Differential understandings amongst stakeholders complicate youth justice
work; contested meanings between its agents and clients may, however, be fatal to its objectives.
Keywords
class-cultures, cultural criminology, ethnography, young offenders, youth justice work
Introduction
Contested meanings underlie key tensions in youth justice. This manifests at a fundamental
level in discourse between welfare and criminal justice ideologies. Public endorsement of
either approach tends to be predicated on dominant perceptions of offending youth, either
as facing developmental challenges or constituting a moral threat (Roberts, 2004).
Conceptions of youth crime and appropriate response differ between categories of practitio-
ner (see Souhami, 2007). Nevertheless, the intertwining of both welfare and justice princi-
ples in successive models of policy and practice (see Smith, 2005) belies some shared
concerns. In either variant, youth justice embodies a negotiation between society’s hege-
monic behavioural expectations and those particular to its target group. The degree to which
the meanings and outcomes of youth justice are contested at its operational core, in the
interactions between agents and clients, has remained under-explored. Cultural criminology
Youth Justice
10(1) 25–39
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225409356760
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