youth justice

Payment by results in tackling youth crime

Notes from a seminar held on Monday 24th October 2011 at the Nuffield Foundation. The seminar took place as a round-table discussion attended by 28 policy makers, youth justice practitioners, researchers, specialists from children’s organisations and think-tanks. Sara Nathan OBE, a broadcaster and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission as well as the Independent Commission on Youth Crime, chaired the meeting.

UK Children's Commissioners' midterm report to the UK State Party on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Midterm report by the four Children's Commissioners that has been written in the context of their continued and ongoing dialogue with each UK administration and tier of government.

It is not a comprehensive assessment of every Article in the UNCRC. Instead it has collected evidence from their work focused on five areas: participation, disabled children, child poverty, children seeking asylum and juvenile justice. Where there is evidence it affirms progress but where there is demonstrable lack of improvement in children and young people’s lives, concerns are voiced.

Thematic review of youth offender casework

The focus of the thematic review was on those aspects of casework which are unique to youth offenders or are particularly problematic.

These included:
• the quality of youth offender charging decisions including pre-court disposals
• the application of the ‘grave crime’ provisions and other related provisions under S51 Crime and Disorder Act 1998 as amended
• the quality of remand applications in respect of youth offenders
• the role of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in preventing offending.

Children and young people in custody 2010-11

Report that describes children and young people’s own perception of imprisonment. The seventh report to be published, it outlines the responses from surveys carried out annually in all young offender institutions holding children and young people aged 15 to 18 years old.

Findings are summarised from 1,052 young men from all nine male establishments and 40 young women from four female establishments.

A review of the youth justice system in Northern Ireland

Review that was launched in 2010 by the Minister of Justice, David Ford, in furtherance of the Hillsborough Castle Agreement. Undertaken by an independent team of three people, its terms of reference were to critically assess the current arrangements for responding to youth crime and make recommendations for how these might be improved within the wider context of, among other things, international obligations, best practice and financially uncertain future.

Time for change: an evaluation into this pilot service for vulnerable young women aged 14-18 years at high risk of secure care or custody

Evaluation of the pilot Up-2-Us Time for Change Project, which is a gender-specific service targeted at young women aged between 14 and 18 years deemed to be at significantly high risk of admission to secure care or custody.

The research takes a multi-dimensional perspective, by undertaking a set of qualitative interviews with young women attending the project, the professionals or stakeholders working with them as well as the practitioner’s of the Time for Change project itself.