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A new government-funded scheme that will see panels of young people aged 10 to 17 pass judgment on young offenders sent some sections of the press into a spin.

Yorkshire Post columnist James Reed was not impressed. "Even if the involvement of the young people in the peer panels is only advisory and the offences in question very minor, this process still constitutes a concession to the idea that children know best," he writes. "That is not a message that the criminal justice system of all places should be endorsing."

Surely, he has missed the point. This isn't about saying young people know better than adults but about listening to and respecting their views - something the justice system hasn't been too good at in the past. It also acknowledges that young people often take more notice of their peers.

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