A ‘radical overhaul’ is the wrong move for the youth justice system

The youth justice system is certainly not perfect. Children’s prisons in particular are appalling, rife with violence, offering almost no education or rehabilitation and failing to keep children safe. Outside of prisons, the support offered to children is often extremely inconsistent, with many places having seen severe cuts to vital preventative work.

But overall, the youth justice system has delivered strong results over the last 15 to 20 years. Those successes are hard-won and potentially fragile. It would be unwise to jeopardise them.

The youth justice system has delivered real successes in a challenging environment

The principal aim of the youth justice system is to reduce offending by children. ²⁶ https://yjlc.uk/resources/legal-terms-z/youth-justice-system  There is strong evidence that avoiding formal criminal justice outcomes and processes – such as being arrested or going to court – is the best way to achieve this. ²⁷ https://yjresourcehub.uk/wp-content/uploads/media/YOT_Talk_Full_Report_European_Journal_of_Criminology_March_2021.pdf  Since 2005, reducing the number of children entering the justice system for the first time (‘first time entrants’) has been a key goal of the youth justice system. ²⁸ https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/youthjusticeaudit.pdf  And it has been enormously successful.

The number of children cautioned or sentenced for the first time fell 93 per cent from its peak in 2007 to 2024, compared to a 64 per cent fall among adults. ³³ MoJ, ‘Youth custody statistics: 2024 to 2025’.  The number of children in prison fell 85 per cent over the same period. A large part of this drop is due to a deliberate change in approach by police forces and youth justice services. Children who would previously have been cautioned or charged now typically receive an informal outcome such as a community resolution, or there is no further action taken.

But this is not just a policy change: there has been a real decline in children committing offences. Informal outcomes do not appear in official child offending statistics, which makes it very hard to track child offending precisely. Overall crime has dropped substantially in England and Wales, and this seems particularly pronounced for children. ³⁴ Griffiths G & Norris G, ‘Explaining the crime drop: contributions to declining crime rates from youth cohorts since 2005’, Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol 73, 2020, retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-019-09846-5?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_source=ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&…  Theft and criminal damage – disproportionately committed by children – fell further and faster than other crime types. This reduction has fed through into lower adult offending rates as those children have grown up. ³⁵ Griffiths G & Norris G, ‘Explaining the crime drop: contributions to declining crime rates from youth cohorts since 2005’, Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol 73, 2020, retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-019-09846-5?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_source=ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&…

There are some important exceptions, including ongoing high rates of certain very serious offences among children. ³⁶ PT25 police  But overall, the system has achieved its core goal: cutting offending by children. And this is all the more impressive given the woeful performance of adult justice services and challenges in children’s social care.

This white paper risks returning to the failures of the Blair governments

This progress may prove fragile. The white paper acknowledges that “over-criminalisation of children is not effective in the long-term” and recognises the achievements of the last 20 years. But it also calls for an earlier and "firmer” response to children offending, saying that the system must act “at the first signs” of “behaviours that indicate a risk of being drawn into crime”. This risks  dragging more children into contact with the justice system and imposing sanctions that may hurt rather than help their chances of rehabilitation.

The last Labour government’s approach offers a clear lesson, with New Labour’s famous mantra of ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, and a push to drive up rates of solved crimes, leading to a rapid increase in children in trouble with the law. The number of children being warned, reprimanded or convicted ⁴¹ Warnings and reprimands were used similarly to cautions for children, before being replaced by youth cautions.  for the first time rose 32 per cent in just four years from 2002/03 to 2006/07, surpassing 110,000. ⁴² DfE, ‘Youth crime: young people aged 10 to17 receiving their first reprimand, warning or conviction - 6-monthly figures to September 2009’.  There is little to suggest this had a positive impact on crime rates.

The white paper echoes much of the Blair government’s language and approach, with its emphasis on “tackling upstream causes” combined with a firmer response and a focus on mandatory interventions over voluntary engagement with support. This includes calling for more parenting orders – first introduced in 1998 – which impose requirements such as guidance programmes on parents of young offenders, as well as deferred prosecution schemes. But evidence suggests that voluntary engagement is often more effective, ⁴³ https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/toolkit/informal-pre-court-diversion/ ⁴⁴ https://www.crestadvisory.com/post/the-youth-justice-white-paper-what-does-it-mean  and parenting orders have largely fallen out of favour for a reason: it is hard to see how fining, let alone imprisoning, a parent is likely to improve a child’s welfare or reduce their chance of reoffending.

The government should focus on building on existing successes 

There is still plenty in the white paper to like. Improving the tracking and oversight of out-of-court resolutions for children is crucial and will provide a much better understanding of how many children are offending, how many interact with youth justice services are what support they get. Similarly, funding for early preventative work through the Turnaround programme and Young Futures Hubs is very welcome and should help address ‘intervention deserts’ where there is limited support available.  

All of these, though, build on existing successes and a system that is generally working well. There are real risks that a “radical overhaul” would undo a lot of the valuable progress of recent years. The government must make sure it preserves the achievements of the last 20 years, rather than undermining them.