Professional Discourses In Youth Justice and the Question of Change

• In Event: Methods to Reduce Juvenile Recidivism: Mentoring, Restorative Justice, and Professional Discourse

Abstract

Youth justice in England and Wales is in a state of flux. The first decade of the 21st century bore witness to an industrial-scale expansion in the criminalisation of young people. Yet, more recently youth justice has dramatically shrunk and the numbers of young people coming into the system for the first time has significantly declined. Whilst some have explained these changes with reference to various reforms to the targets set by central government and/or a noticeable ‘cooling down’ of the political climate in which youth justice is discussed, this paper addresses the question of change from a different angle. It asks how, in what ways, and to what effect professional discourses in youth justice have challenged official discourses. Drawing on interviews with 86 professionals working with young offenders, this paper argues that the combination of austerity politics and economics alongside central government strategies of localism created a space for youth justice professionals and practitioners to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions that criminal justice sanctions are the most appropriate way to deal with young people’s less than law abiding behaviour.

Authors

• Jo Phoenix, University of Leicester

• Laura Kelly, Liverpool John Moores University