Just for Kids Law (1121638) Better Courts Courts that Work for Young People.

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

Better Courts

Courts that Work for Young People

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

LEGITIMACY

Fair

Predictable

Participatory (Voice)

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

FAIR

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

FAIR

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

FAIR

• IPSO/MORI report 80% of articles about young people use negative language

• At the same time a survey of nearly 1,000 teenage boys found 85% believed newspapers portray them in a bad light (Women in Journalism)

• ICM research for Barnardos• 49% think children are beginning to behave like

animals. Almost 47% thought youngsters were angry, violent and abusive

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

PREDICTABLE

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

PREDICTABLEEvening Standard 22/01/15

Punishment for all gang members if one carries out a violent crime

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

PARTICIPATION/ VOICE

Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into the Youth Justice System

• Young People do not feel a part of the process therefore it has no legitimacy.

• No vote – no voice• No representation in legal system – no voice

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

PARTICIPATION/VOICE‘Participative approaches can improve outcomes. If young people feel listened to, they value the experience and their behaviour is likely to improve.’Hart and Thompson (2009)

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

LACK OF LEGITIMACY

A wide-ranging LSE study called Reading the Riots concluded that the major contributory factors were opportunism, perceived social injustice, deprivation, and frustration at the way communities were policed

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

What do we want from the system?

• Professor Neal HazelIf you think the aim of the criminal justice system is to be shown primarily to be providing justice to the community or to be in a traditional sense, then the courts are the symbol of justice and so on and so forth. If you feel, however, that the aim is to be in the best interests of the child, or if you think the aim is about stopping offending, about desistance, if you think the aim is about meeting the needs of the child, then that would suggest that at the moment we don’t have the right system.

Just for Kids Law (1121638)

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS?

• Voice/Participation – Empathy of decision makers• Judged by behaviour in total not just with authority• JfK Ambassadors- ‘You have no idea how much my hope has

been restored and being an Ambassador I wear that title proudly as I am able to give back .’

• Youth representation in decision making; – 1 young person on the bench– Young people in juries– Young people on panel of youth judges