This essay is going to critically discuss the services offered to young offenders and their aims and coherent ideology. The Youth Justice System in England and Wales is an organisation working together under a legal framework and overseen by the Youth Justice Board. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 requires local authorities to set up youth offending teams(YOT) to work with children within schools, young people offending or at risk of offending. YOTs must be representatives from Police, Health Services, Probation Service, Education and Social Services. The aim of Youth Offending Teams was to stop re offending or offending.
The Police role within the YOT is a key element and the role should be protected. Such as prevention work has a contribution to significant reductions in the first time entrants to the criminal justice system. They also work with low level offenders as well as supporting the management of serious and prolific offenders. “Their key responsibilities within the youth offending team revolve around five main themes; intelligence and information sharing, early intervention and prevention, youth caution and conditional caution delivery, offender management and partnership working.”(Youth justice board, 2014) Social Workers key responsibilities within the YOT is to look at who has committed the offence and their back ground. They will carry out risk assessments and planning how to manage any future risks of offending by using ASSETS. They prepare reports for the courts before sentencing based on risk assessments. They complete action plans to support the young offender and how prevent them from re offending and refer them to agencies such as housing or drug and alcohol misuse services to support their welfare needs. Also they help young offenders back into education, or find work or training, and encouraging them to take part in constructive activities.
“Policy makers have recognised the aetiological link between young people’s criminal behaviour and their family, and criminal education situations, youth justice policy in the last two decades has targeted these areas in seeking to prevent crime.” (Fionda, J 2005,Page 204) This states that super vision is a massive key part to a child’s life growing up to stop offending, supervision is the key not responsibility. The Police follow a model with refers to ‘crime is caused by free will’ this is a classical criminology theory used by Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. These theorists argue that crime was a result of a rational choice. (Fionda, J 2005 Page, 34-35) Police follow the Model as it states the punishment relates to the offence rather than the offender. Maguire et al, states that “Police and Probation were generally very good, cultural and organisational differences could have an impact upon the plans made and the actions taken”. (Maguire et al, 2001, page 37)
The Model used by Social Services focuses more on the offender rather than the crime. Crimes are caused by social forces; meaning the young person’s surroundings and pressure. It is known that young people who commit crimes is because of bad parenting, lack of education, unemployment and poor living conditions. The key feature which the Model Social Workers look at is that “crime is viewed as a product of the offender’s environment and the offender is seen as neglected, poor or deprived rather than depraved”. (Fionda, J 2005,Page 36) Social Workers focus on the offender base not the offence base which relates to Dugmore 2006, when it comes to Act and Actor orientation the social worker focuses on the person of the crime rather than the act. Whereas; the police look at the actions performed on the crime rather than the person who performed it. Common features of a modern welfare is the oriented youth justice system include a focus on community or non-custodial penalties which are designed to facilitate intervention by agencies like social services for example the probation service. This aims to combat ‘risk’ factors associated with re-offending.
Due to New Labor within the Youth Justice System, it wasn’t cleat at first whether it was the Government’s intention to choose the Model which the Police, Social services use or Treatment model. The Treatment model emerges towards the model which Social services use. “By this it isn’t clear ideology is discernible and that all the overall approach in the crime and disorder act 1998 was described as ‘melting pot of principle’s and ideologies”. (Fionda, J 2005, page 55) Smith (2009) also has argued that the changes introduced to youth justice by New Labor are not particularly radical, but simply signify a swing of the welfare-justice pendulum at the center of Youth Justice in England and Wales.
Dugmore, 2006 discusses steps which the Police and Social Services offer to the Youth Offender. The Process and Adaptable Procedures looks at the offence and the sanctions. Social Workers have no fixed procedures where as Police Officers have fixed procedures to ensure that all the accused persons are treated in the same manner. Whereas; Maguire et al, “found that Police Officers typically focused upon the containment or incapacitation of offenders and the effective management of public order issues, rather than on re-hesitative issues.” (Maguire et al, 2001, page 37) Formalism and Informality is looking at how formal or informal trail is. The Police have “standpoint with requires a sombre procedure in a court room where complex legal language is used and lawyers were gowns but social services have a standpoint, hearings where it is informal atmosphere so that the young person and witnesses do not feel uncomfortable to speak”. (Dugmore, P 2006, page 27-28) Scourfield talks about how the best way to speak to a Youth is consider the more “Personal dimensions of language, the extent to which children see the language they speak as essential to their own conception of self-identity and who they are.” (Scourfield, J 2006, Page 129) This is for how Social Services approach speaking to Young Offenders.
Adversarial and Inquisitorial is how to focus either being understanding with the offender or being focused with a stricter way with legal battle. The “Social Workers adopts a minimalistic approach to fact finding and avoids any conflictual confrontations. Whereas the Police have a more traditional focus on the legal battle between the Defence and Prosecution lawyers in an effort to find the truth.” (Dugmore, P, 2006 page 27-28) Legalistic and Holistic is how you different YOTS approach the offence either to help the offender or to be formal so that everyone gets treated fairly. During trails police officers have a formal way of justice and everything is done the legal way to back up a ‘fair trail’. Whereas; social workers don’t have lawyers so that the youth offender doesn’t feel intimidated and confortable to speak out along with other youth witnesses. In the court hearing teachers and Health Workers can ask to come along also if they are known to the Young Offender. Social Workers do not have lawyers and themselves may take part in the court hearing as well as Teachers and Health Workers. “This is because it helps them discuss the best possible solutions to the person’s problematic behaviour.”(Dugmore, P 2006, page 27-28). The only similarity here is that the Youth Offender gets treated with the same manner. Proportionate and Tailor made sentence is the time which gets given to the offender for committing the crime or the time they should serve due to who they are. During trail Police make sure that it is a fair and consistency trial and that defendant is sentenced to the appropriate way so that it serves justice. But on the other had the Social Worker is more concerned about the sentence fitting the offender and not the offence fitting the sentence. “As with the social work ethic, there is some work on probation values but surprising little on how these translate into practice, or occupational culture.” (Ellis, T. no date) Responsibility, Blame and Explanation and Causation, is when someone commits the crime or gets blamed for the crime they get an explanation of the process and they will get a causation for the offense being committed. The Police can arrest anyone from the age of 10 or above in England and Wales. It is known that if you commit “the crime and so logically should be made to face up to full consequences of their behaviour.” Whereas Social Workers investigated “the reasons behind the offending behaviour in order to provide suitable interventions and the young person’s capacity to form the required level of culpability is considered.”(Dugmore, P 2006, page 27-28)
In conclusion, even though the Police and Social Services work alongside each other within the Youth Justice System. I have clearly stated that each of them do have similar aims but they aren’t the same. The Police is more focused on justice whereas the Social Worker is more concern on the offender and looking after them. During each stage of working with the Youth Offender, The police and Social Services both have different ways of approaching the situation and also different aims. Even though it is stated that both make sure that they have a fair trial and are well looked after the Police are looking for Justice whereas Social Workers are more concerned about the Youth Offenders behaviour and their background to why they Offend.
References:
Dugmore, P. (2006). Working within a Youth Offending Team and in the Youth Justice System. In: Dugmore, P., Pickford, J. & Angus, S. (eds.) Youth Justice and Social Work. Learning Matters. 27-28.
Ellis, T. (no date). Is there a unifying professional culture in Youth Offending Teams? .Available: http://www.britsoccrim.org/volume7/006.pdf. Assessed: 2nd December 2015.
Fionda, J (2005). Devils and Angels: Youth Policy and Crime. North America: Hart Publishing. 34-204
Maguire, M., Kemshall, H., Noaks, L. and Wincup, E. (2001). Risk Management of Sexual and Violent Offenders: The work of Public Protection Panels. Police Research Series Paper 139. London: Home Office
Scourfield, J (2006). Children, Place and Identity. Oxon: Routledge. 129.
Smith, R. (2009). Childhood, Agency and Youth Justice. Children & Society, 23 (4), 252-264.
Youth Justice Board. (2014). The Role of the YOT Police Officer. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/365284/yot-police-officer-role.pdf. Accessed: 2nd December 2015