This paper considers experiences of penal and voluntary-sector interventions in the lives of young people labelled as ‘troubled’ or ‘at risk’ of criminal behaviour. Drawing on data from a case-study conducted in the north of England, this paper focuses on the narratives of young people ‘on the margins’ of society who were involved with a range of community-based interventions, specifically youth clubs, a support group and a mandatory youth justice course. We consider how young people experience and respond to stigmatising elements prevalent in the structured interventions and everyday interactions with the institutions and agencies intended to support them. We argue that ‘promotive’ relationships between young people and the adults working with them enable young people to challenge risk-based identities and navigate the barriers they face.

There are multiple structural and practical barriers to Aboriginal young people with cognitive disability in remote areas receiving the support and services they need. Multidisciplinary mixed-methods research over the past decade has provided evidence of the ways that many such young people end up with complex support needs and being ‘managed’ by police and justice agencies in the absence of appropriate early intervention, transition support and community-based options. This article presents and synthesises knowledge generated by this body of work and contextualises it within the experiences and trajectory of a young Aboriginal woman with cognitive disability and complex support needs from a remote town. This case study is drawn from a New South Wales linked administrative dataset containing data from health, housing, disability, human services, police, legal, court and justice agencies on a cohort of people who have been incarcerated. The article draws out key principles and strategies to suggest what a community-led, holistic service response could have looked like for Casey.

Drawing upon recent literature and a small-scale survey that explored the perceptions and experiences of front line workers and incarcerated girls1 from North Wales, this article examines the needs and experiences of girls who commit crime in Wales but are subsequently ‘exported’ to England to serve their sentence. While not literally sent to Coventry, these indigenous girls from Wales are forced to reside in the secure estate in England and metaphorically ‘sent to Coventry’. This article considers important emerging issues including: human rights, discrimination, identity, linguistic need, family contact and resettlement.

Local and international research suggests an overrepresentation of young people leaving state out-of-home care in the youth justice system. A range of factors appear to contribute to this correlation including child abuse and neglect, placement instability, experiences of residential care, and unsupported transitions from care. This article presents the findings of a Victorian pilot study conducted in partnership with Whitelion, a not-for-profit organisation specifically offering support to ‘young people involved with or at risk of involvement with the youth justice and/or out-of-home care and leaving care services’ (Whitelion, 2012), to examine the interrelationship between the child protection and youth justice systems, and particularly to explore the processes that take place when young people involved in the youth justice system leave state care. A series of interviews and focus groups with Whitelion workers were used to explore whether leaving care plans and policies address and minimise involvement with youth justice; the role, if any, of formal consultations by child protection services with youth justice regarding this group of care leavers; and the ongoing role of youth justice postcare, particularly when young people are in custody at the time of their exit from care. Some significant implications for policy and practice are identified.

Adolescent to parent violence is a problem which remains largely unarticulated within youth justice policy literature and academic discourse in England and Wales. This article presents research evidence suggesting that adolescent to parent violence is a significant problem which needs to be clearly addressed in the youth justice policy agenda. Although it is widely recognised by practitioners and regularly encountered in their work, there is a ‘silence’ at the policy level and a lack of appropriate support services or responses. The article considers reasons for the absence of adolescent to parent violence in youth justice policy and argues for the importance of recognising and defining the problem and for the development of appropriate responses.

Drawing on data collected as part of a qualitative study on parent abuse, this article explores how child to parent violence is constructed by professionals working within the three related domains of youth justice, domestic violence and child protection. The article, a discussion piece, charts the continuities and contradictions contained within practitioners’ understandings of this form of family violence, focusing on how the problem emerges, the causal explanations employed and their impact on practice responses.

This article reviews the different forms of legal interventions which may be available to address parent abuse. It seeks to examine the evidence as to which are actually used currently and the problems which are inherent in them. We do this both by examining the statutory basis of the existing potential legal remedies and reported cases relating to those provisions, and by drawing on evidence from a small-scale study of relevant professional workers in one city. We conclude that while recourse to the police, and hence potentially the criminal justice system, is most frequent in practice, the criminal justice system is not suited to tackling the issue. Other interventions, such as anti-social behaviour orders and injunctions, also reveal problems. Law struggles to find an effective response to such a complex problem. Notwithstanding the acknowledged limits of law in changing behaviour, we argue that law could be used more effectively to reduce the incidence and impact of parent abuse.