Managing Other Significant Systems

Abstract

The preceding chapters of this book have attempted to describe and analyse the real achievements, as well as deficits, which emerge from the coherent youth justice approach accomplished during the 1980s. Against this background, worthwhile practice at the end of the 1990s has to adapt that model to the changing needs and circumstances of young people. This chapter looks at an area for practice development which, in the argument of this book, should have found a stronger place in the conduct of social work within youth justice throughout this period, and the absence of which has contributed significantly to the problems faced currently both by young people in trouble and by workers seeking constructively to address their difficulties. In principle our starting point is close to that of Carlen (1996: 48) who argues that, ‘in the rush to renounce rehabilitation, few supporters of the justice model seemed to realise that the 1970s attack on welfare in juvenile (criminal) justice was the thin end of the wedge as far as welfare in general was concerned’. In practice this chapter begins from the position outlined by the lead organisations in youth justice who, in their 1995 discussion paper (AMA 1995: 4), suggested that

local authority policies also bear upon young offenders; a rise in school exclusions, a reduction in youth work or a reduction of other services for children in need can be expected to increase the crime rate…All legislation, not merely criminal justice legislation needs to be sufficiently scrutinised at a governmental level for its effect upon the lives of young people and their future behaviour.