Abstract
The very fact that children are tried and sentenced to punishment in the criminal courts is counter to the fundamental principles of Child First. In their design and in their practice, the criminal courts in England and Wales are austere and formal places that children experience as stigmatising, alienating, frightening, and confusing, and which are almost as likely than not to result in further offending. In the criminal courts therefore, children continue to be first and foremost treated as ‘defendants’ and their status as child is secondary at best. This chapter therefore explores the barriers, challenges, progress, and possibilities in adopting the four tenets of Child First within the existing system for holding children criminally responsible. It does so by analysing a select number of issues which seem to me, after almost two decades of conducting research focusing on children’s rights in youth justice, remain some of the most challenging issues facing the courts, and which Child First can and must address.
Kathryn Hollingsworth: My thanks to Kate Aubrey-Johnson for comments on an earlier draft. All errors remain my own.
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Notes
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Nb the data is not disaggregated by age/youth court.
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Hollingsworth, K. (2023). Child First in the Criminal Courts. In: Case, S., Hazel, N. (eds) Child First. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19272-2_8
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