By Aaron Brown and Nina Vaswani

The Glasgow Youth Court is a judicially-led initiative which has been supported by Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (GCHSCP) and which has been operational since June 2021. Functioning within the Glasgow Sheriff Court, it operates on a problem-solving basis, covering those aged between 16 and 24-years-old. Where the presiding Sheriff is satisfied, the Glasgow Youth Court caters for the use of Structured Deferred Sentencing (SDS), which combines multi-disciplinary intervention and support in the community, with regular court reviews to monitor and encourage young people’s progress. The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) was commissioned by GCHSCP in late 2021 to undertake research into the Glasgow Youth Court, with the purpose of: 

Documenting the implementation, design and operation of the Youth Court; Evaluating data relating to Youth Court outcomes; Evidencing how the Youth Court is experienced by a range of key stakeholders. 

This report, through examination of the above themes, provides insight into how the Youth Court has been operationalised, how it has been experienced, and its key outcomes.    

Glasgow: Children and Young People's Centre for Justice,  2023. 56p.

By Tim Bateman 

The National Association for Youth Justice (NAYJ) campaigns for the rights of, and justice for, children in trouble. It seeks to promote the welfare of children in the youth justice system and to advocate for child friendly responses where children infringe the law (NAYJ, 2019). The Association has, more recently, endorsed the Youth Justice Board’s adoption of a ‘child first’ model, first articulated in its Strategic Plan, published in 2018 (Youth Justice Board, 2018). The subsequent revised edition of National Standards for children in the youth justice system, published in 2019, is intended to provide a framework to support agencies in delivering a child first provision, by ensuring that they: • ‘Prioritise the best interests of children, recognising their needs, capacities, rights and potential; • Build on children’s individual strengths and capabilities as a means of developing a prosocial identity for sustainable desistance from crime. This leads to safer communities and fewer victims. All work is constructive and future-focused, built on supportive relationships that empower children to fulfil their potential and make positive contributions to society; • Encourage children’s active participation, engagement and wider social inclusion. All work is a meaningful collaboration with children and their carers • Promote a childhood removed from the justice system, using prevention, diversion and minimal intervention. All work minimises criminogenic stigma from contact with the system’ 

London: Ministry of Justice/Youth Justice Board, 2019: 6)

By  Laceé N. Pappas &  Amy L. Dent 

ByJames P. Lynch

The fact that our assessment of current trends in juvenile offending is based largely on arrest data reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by local law enforcement agencies raises a fundamental question about the capacity of such data to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of the myriad challenges that face today’s youth and our society. The information that this Bulletin offers on trends in juvenile violent offending over the past two decades, however, comes from a different source: the victims of those offenses. Thus, unlike the data derived from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, which drive traditional assessments, the information provided by the National Crime Victimization Survey— and featured in these pages—is not limited to cases that come to the attention of local law enforcement officials, primarily through arrests. By comparing the pictures of trends in juvenile violent offending that these diverse data sources provide, we can begin to answer the critical question posed above and to determine whether our present understanding of juvenile offending accurately reflects the nature of those crimes—and not merely the nature of its origins.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2002. 20p.

By Susan J. Terrio

In October 2005, three weeks of rioting erupted in France following the accidental deaths of two French boys of North African ancestry. Killed while fleeing the police, these boys were deemed dangerous based largely on their immigrant origins. In France, disadvantaged children of immigrant and foreign ancestry represent the vast majority of formal suspects and have increasingly been portrayed as a threat to public safety and as the embodiment of the assault on French values.Despite official rhetoric of protection, Judging Mohammed reveals how the treatment of these children in the juvenile courts system undermines legal guarantees of equality and due process and reinforces existing hierarchies. Based on five years of extensive research in the largest and most influential juvenile court in France, this work follows young people inside the system, from arrest to court trials. Revealing an alarming turn toward accountability, restitution, and retribution, this groundbreaking study uncovers the disquieting reasons behind France's shifting approaches to the identification, treatment, and representation of its delinquent youth.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 2009. 369p.