Surveying the ‘New Youth Justice’ in England and Wales, 2000-25: Politics, penal outcomes and analytical learning

• In Event: Reflections on Juvenile Justice and Youth Crime - Special Panel Celebrating 25 Years of ESC

Abstract

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 marked the most radical reform of the youth justice system in England and Wales for almost a century. Following implementation of this wide-ranging legislation, a newly established ‘Youth Justice Board’ assumed responsibility for the custodial estate for children and young people at the national-level (in April 2000) and, at the same time, similarly new multi-agency ‘Youth Offending Teams’ became responsible for coordinating youth justice services at the local-level. By focusing principally on the patterning of penal detention over the last 25 years in England and Wales, this paper will survey the extraordinary and contradictory shifts in the politics and governance of youth justice, alongside the penal outcomes to which such politics have given rise. It will conclude by reflecting upon some of the analytical learning that might be drawn from this period.

Author

• Barry Goldson, The University of Liverpool