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YOUTH JUSTICE BOARD FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
The Youth Justice Board is responsible for the commissioning and purchasing of all secure accommodation for under 18-year-olds (‘juveniles’), whether sentenced or on remand. Young offender institutions (YOIs) are run by the Prison Service (except where contracted out) and cater for 15-20 year-olds, but within YOIs the Youth Justice Board has purchased discrete accommodation for juveniles where the regimes are specially designed to meet their needs. Juvenile units in YOIs are for 15-17 year-old boys and 17-year-old girls.
There is no longer any conclusive definition under the law of a young person. Over the years, the terms ‘young person’ and ‘young people’ have come to be used fairly generally in everyday speech, to the extent that they may now lack precise meaning. In the Children and Young Persons Acts of 1933, 1963 and 1969, a young person was defined as someone aged from 14 to 17 years; anyone under 14 was a child. However, the Children Act 1989 defined a child as anyone under age 18; it made no mention of young person. Both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which came into force in the UK in 1992) and the Children Act 2004 (for most purposes); also define a child as any person under age 18. Many services, policy documents and practitioner guidelines now commonly refer to ‘children and young people’; but rather than imply any definitive demarcation between the two, the intention is more often to use a ‘catch-all’ term that includes all (or most) definitions under the law. And just as importantly, the preference for the term ‘children and young people’ also reflects the fact that many teenagers under age 18 strongly dislike being referred to as children. The term ‘young people’ is used by Connexions for example to include young adults aged 18 -25.
Young people under the age of 18 who have the responsibility of caring for a member of their family.
Although commonly used in everyday speech, the term ‘youth’ does not always carry precise meaning. The term is perhaps most commonly used to refer to 13-19 years olds: that is the age group covered by the government’s youth Green Paper; and youth workers tend to work mostly with young people between the ages of 13 and 19 (although they may also work with young people from age 11 right through to age 25).
Children aged from 10 to 17 are generally tried in the youth court where they are dealt with by specially trained magistrates. Cases will be sent to the Crown Court if a child is charged with another person aged 18 or over, or is charged with murder or manslaughter.
YOUTH JUSTICE BOARD FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
The principal aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by children and young people less than 18 years of age. The Youth Justice Board is an executive non-departmental public body. It was established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Its board members are appointed by the Home Secretary.
Youth Offending Teams were introduced (under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998) in April 2000 to provide a better framework for tackling youth offending at a local level. There is a Youth Offending Team (YOT) in every local authority, bringing together staff from the police, the probation service, social services, education, health and other agencies. Each team is led by a YOT Manager, who is responsible for co-ordinating the work of the local youth justice services. Teams identify the needs of all young offenders by use of a standardised assessment process, identifying the young person’s problems and measuring the risk they pose to others.
Youth workers (also known as youth and community workers) promote young people’s personal and social development through a range of non-formal educational activities that combine enjoyment and challenges. They work with young people between the ages of 11 and 25, but for the most part, with 13-19 year olds. Youth workers are usually employed by a local authority’s education department, but may sometimes be employed by the leisure, recreation or social services department. They may also be employed by voluntary organisations. They may be based in youth clubs or other community centres. Some youth workers are ‘detached’, which means that rather than work in a traditional youth centre, they meet young people in informal settings such as amusement arcades, shopping centres, on the streets, or wherever young people gather.
Page updated: Friday, December 8, 2006 12:08 PM
