Introduction

Summary

This book draws together the proceedings of a December 2006 seminar that examined a range of issues relating to young people and risk. The event was organised by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London with the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. It was funded and supported by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) and the Parole Board for England and Wales.

We decided to organise the seminar because there had been a number of highprofile cases that had focused widespread attention on the issue of risk and public protection. The issue had not only assumed significant prominence within the criminal justice agenda but also in the wider politics of Westminster and was considered to be a key aspect in the failure of the Home Office, which was famously declared as ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘unfit for purpose’ by John Reid shortly after he became home secretary in May 2006. Just two months later in July the Home Office published a wide-ranging review of criminal justice policy that set out new proposals for ‘protecting the public from serious, violent and dangerous offenders’ (Home Office, 2006b: 30). The review focused primarily on adults who offend but we took the view that the changing criminal justice policy landscape, increasingly centred on the concept of risk, was equally important for agencies working with children and young people under 18 years old.

Moreover, we were conscious that the Parole Board was being asked to consider the extent to which risk could be managed in the community in many cases of people who offend prolifically and persistently who had started offending under the age of 18. Indeed, the numbers of young people receiving new indeterminate sentences for public protection had doubled in the 12 months to December 2006 (Home Office, 2006a). Decisions on releasing these young people would rest entirely on an agreed understanding of risk assessment. It seemed to us that procedures underlying the risk management of young people who offend required urgent attention by policy makers and practitioners across the youth justice system. In particular, it was felt that for young people there are a range of different factors to consider both in relation to the organisational culture of youth justice services and in relation to adolescence itself which require policy makers to adopt alternative measures to those gaining dominance in the adult criminal justice system.