Youth Crime: Whose Responsibility?
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2008.00418.x |
| Author | Alex Newbury |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 35, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2008
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 131±49
Youth Crime: Whose Responsibility?
Alex Newbury*
Responsibility is an increasingly important concep t within both
political and academic debates about youth justice. As an alternative
approach to youth crime, restorative justice ideology has contributed
to this debate. Restorative justice emphasizes the importance of
repairing harm by encouraging offenders to address past behaviour
and to become responsible for future actions. This article reflects on
empirical findings from the author's research with 41 young offenders
who were the subjects of Referral Orders, a purportedly restorative
disposal. It considers how successfully the English youth justice system
has adopted this approach, arguing that there is a significant differ-
ence between the theory of restorative justice and its use in practice.
To some extent, New Labour's emphasis on the criminal justice system
has missed the point behind the ideology of restorative justice and the
wider opportunities it offers for a proactively restorative society.
INTRODUCTION
With the restorative approach there is no way for youngsters ± or their parents
±tohide from their personal responsibilities.
1
This article considers the concept of responsibility from the perspective of
youth justice. It examines the attempt by the government over the last decade
to make young people and their parents `responsible' for youth offending
through Referral Orders, an ostensibly restorative approach. There is an
131
ß2008 The Author. Editorial organization ß2008 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Sussex Law School, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QQ, England.
A.H.Newbury@sussex.ac.uk
With thanks to Jo Bridgeman, Elizabeth Craig, Marie-Benedicte Dembour, Laurence
Koffman, and Kenny Veitch for their valued comments on earlier drafts; and to the
editors, Heather Keating and Craig Lind. A paper on this subject was given at the Socio-
Legal Studies Association Conference in Stirling and I would like to thank those who
attended for their comments.
1A.Michael, Minister of State, in a speech to the Crime Concern Parliamentary
Discussion Group, London, 7 July 1998.
historical tension between punitive and welfar e approaches to youth
offending and this conflict continues within the government's interpretation
of restorative justice as manifested in the introduction of Referral Orders.
The government's emphasis on `taking responsibility', as set out in the
epigraph of this article, conflicts with the restorative ideal of encouraging
young people to `become responsible'.
`Responsibility' can be defined in two ways. It may invoke a more
negative, historical perspective of `taking responsibility' for past offensive
behaviour and `facing its consequences', which seems to mark a broadly
punitive approach. Alternatively, it can encourage a more positive, forward-
looking perspective of helping young people to understand and appreciate
the impact of their behaviour on others and enabling them, by addressing
social, educational, emotional or behavioural needs, to become more
responsible in the future ± a truly restorative approach. This split ideology
impacts on the success of Referral Orders because of their location within a
traditionally punitive justice framework. This is demonstrated by examining
several case studies from the author's empirical research with young
offenders.
On a wider scale, the article questions whether the emphasis on justice
and making young people `take responsibility' in fact misses the point
because it fails to address the underlying causes of why youths offend. Prima
facie, there is a lacuna in provision of social and educational support for
young people at the margins which remains unmet,
2
and this is the respon-
sibility of the state. Unless society undertakes to meet these needs pro-
actively, it will continue to tackle the problem by using the blunt instrument
of reactive justice measures: a narrow and ultimately flawed approach. What
is more, even if these measures have grown from a restorative ideology,
there is still a very real danger that they will either be punitive in their use, or
will be perceived as punitive in practice by the young people who receive
them. This is detrimental to the dual restorative ideologies of enabling young
people who have offended to become responsible citizens within their
society, and helping victims to feel satisfied that any apology or reparation
carried out by young offenders is purposeful and worthwhile.
Following a brief overview of the approaches informing youth offending
measures, and a discussion of the use and meanings of the term
`responsibility', the article focuses on particular issues regarding very young
offenders. It examines how far the ideology of restorative justice and `taking
responsibility' works with offenders in the 10±12 age group. The discussion
then moves on to consideration of other barriers to taking responsibility
132
2 See D.E. Stephen and P. Squires, ```Adults Don't Realise How Sheltered They Are'':
A Contribution to the Debate on Youth Transitions from Some Voices on the
Margins' (2003) 6 J. of Youth Studies 145 and V. Gillies, `Meeting parents needs?
Discourses of ``support'' and ``inclusion'' in family policy' (2005) 25 Critical Social
Policy 70.
ß2008 The Author. Editorial organization ß2008 Cardiff University Law School
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