Youth Justice: Ideas, policy, practice By Roger Smith Published by: Willan 2007 (second edition) Price: 19.50 ISBN 978 1 84392 224 7
The first edition of this book was an excellent introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary youth justice. Now significantly revised and updated, it remains a key text for both students and practitioners in this field.
Its problem, however, lies in the fact that while the ideas surrounding youth justice remain relatively constant, their shape and balance change with the political wind and influence policy and practice accordingly. As a result, it is virtually impossible to keep up to speed with the latter.
That is precisely why Smith has had to produce a second edition less than four years after the first. To his credit, he has absorbed many of the most recent changes, including the Youth Justice Board's strategy for the secure estate, Lord Carlile's inquiry on the use of restraint in secure establishments and the All Wales Youth Offending Strategy. Even the very current concerns with risk and public protection get a mention.
What is bizarre is the effort that Smith has expended in tinkering with the headings of chapters and sub-sections - perhaps to give the illusion of more change between the two editions than has actually been effected.
The message is the standard one for books of this kind: youth justice in England and Wales is overly, perhaps obsessively, punitive and interventionist: current policy produces counterproductive results. A more liberal, humane and progressive position regarding young people who offend could be developed and delivered with at least similar results for society in general and rather better ones for the young people concerned.
Reviewed by Howard Williamson, professor of European Youth Policy at the University of Glamorgan and a member of the Youth Justice Board.
