The changing shape of youth justice: Models of practice
| Author | Patricia Gray,Roger Smith |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895818781199 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818781199
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2019, Vol. 19(5) 554 –571
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895818781199
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The changing shape of youth
justice: Models of practice
Roger Smith
Durham University, UK
Patricia Gray
University of Plymouth, UK
Abstract
This article reports on a two-year investigation, which maps out contemporary approaches
to the delivery of youth justice in England, in light of substantial recent changes in this area
of practice. The findings are derived from a detailed examination of youth offending plans
and a series of corroborative semi-structured interviews with managers and practitioners
from selected youth offending services. Our inquiry has enabled us to develop a detailed
three-fold typology of youth justice agencies’ orientations towards practice, represented as
‘offender management’, ‘targeted intervention’ and ‘children and young people first’; as well
as a small number of ‘outliers’ where priorities are articulated rather differently. Our findings
enable us to reflect on this evidence to suggest that there are a number of ‘models’ of youth
justice practice operating in parallel; and that there does not appear at present to be the
kind of ‘orthodoxy’ in place which has sometimes prevailed in this field. We also raise doubts
about previous representations of unified models of youth justice presumed to be operative
at national or jurisdictional levels. We conclude with a number of further observations
about the combined effect of current influences on the organization and realization of youth
justice, including the growing emphasis on localized responsibility for delivery and increasingly
complex expectations of the service context.
Keywords
Children first, models of youth justice, offender management, targeted intervention
Corresponding author:
Roger Smith, School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, 30 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN, UK.
Email: roger.smith@durham.ac.uk
781199CRJ0010.1177/1748895818781199Criminology & Criminal JusticeSmith and Gray
research-article2018
Article
Smith and Gray 555
The Backdrop: Youth Justice Realignment, ‘Models’ of
Intervention and Their Implications
Youth justice in England1 is changing. Recent developments across the spectrum of law,
policy, organization, delivery and outcomes suggest a different picture than when
Goldson (2010) was writing despairingly of the ‘sleep of criminological reason’. From
that viewing point, subsequent changes appear more ambiguous. Within this one national
jurisdiction, we have since witnessed a ‘rehabilitation revolution’; a legislative challenge
to the idea of a strict tariff of disposals; the impact of austerity; significant changes in
service structures and responsibilities; substantial revisions of operational guidance and
targets; and, of course, a major shift in the pattern of outcomes in youth justice.
With a reduction of over two-thirds in the number of young people in custody from
2008 to 2015 (Ministry of Justice/Youth Justice Board, 2016), and substantially increased
use of a range of diversionary options at the ‘front end’ of the system, a clear trend seems
to have been established (Bateman, 2014, 2017). But, before celebrating a new ‘age of
diversion’ we must adopt a note of caution in view of the substantial and persistent over-
representation of Black and Minority Ethnic young people in custody (Pitts, 2015: 39),
the inadequacy of much of the secure estate, the persistence of dehumanizing custodial
conditions and the continuing evidence that young people ‘in the system’ experience
oppression and social exclusion (Cunneen et al., 2017).
In this article, our focus will be on the pivotal role of youth offending services (YOSs)
and teams (YOTs) as mediators and moderators, bridging the formal instructions and exhor-
tations of legislators and policy-makers on the one hand; and the demands and opportunities
associated with managing resources and engaging directly with young people whose behav-
iour is seen as problematic, on the other. What are the realities for those in the youth justice
field of ‘street level bureaucracy’ (Lipsky, 2010) and ‘relative autonomy’ (Poulantzas,
1978), then? What, indeed, is the scope for service level actors to ‘subvert’ and/or transform
the prevailing logic of an overdetermining system (Barnes and Prior, 2009)?
Accounting for practices and outcomes in youth justice has sometimes seemed a
straightforward matter of identifying critical events or significant political shifts which
provide a more or less comprehensive explanation for what has happened. Substantial
change is associated with the welfarist reforms of the 1960s, for instance (Thorpe et al.,
1980); or the ‘punitive turn’ of the early 1990s (Muncie, 2008). We have perhaps been
unduly prepared to think in terms of rapid and decisive changes of direction; as ideas,
policy and practice appear to coalesce rapidly around a particular mode of intervention,
associated with a dominant perspective (‘paradigm’) on both the causes of and effective
responses to youth crime (Case and Haines, 2009). Comprehensive and definitive explan-
atory mechanisms accounting for young people’s delinquent behaviour are incorporated
in the articulation of such models, via the policy frameworks and practice methods which
supposedly underpin effective service delivery and guarantee positive outcomes.
There is an element of caricature in this portrayal, but certain orthodoxies are repre-
sented in the ways in which we approach youth crime and young offenders (Hazel, 2008).
Indeed, acceptance of this concretizing tendency has informed previous attempts to artic-
ulate coherent ‘models’ of youth justice policy and practice, usually organized around
national or jurisdictional boundaries (Bala et al., 2002; Cavadino and Dignan, 2006;
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