CYP Now - Obituary - the Youth Justice Board 1999-2011

Somewhere in the archives of early 21st-century British social policy, there may be a dusty volume that records the fact that I was the only person who served under all five chairs of the Youth Justice Board - the supremely confident and connected Norman Warner, interim chair and passionate advocate of restorative justice Charles Pollard, the intellectually unsurpassable Rod Morgan, the pragmatic and effective Graham Robb (another interim chair) and the cautious but industrious Frances Done.

No five individuals could have been more different but, as heads of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) for England and Wales, they argued for, defended and advanced the quality of the youth justice system. They did so in the interests of both the young people who passed through it and a wider society that was increasingly bombarded by both the media and politicians with stories of yobs, hoodies, knife crime and anti-social behaviour.

Some of these issues were real, but much was either illusionary or exaggerated. Whatever the ‘facts’, this placed the YJB’s claims to have slowed-down entry into the youth justice system and to have reduced levels and severity of youth offending, in some doubt. It was always vulnerable to allegations of spin but rarely gained credit for its achievements.

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