Youth Justice

Importantly, ‘youth justice’ is distinguished from ‘youth crime’ by its specific focus on the ways in which the criminal justice process is constructed and implemented in relation to young people whose behaviour is deemed to be antisocial or unlawful. In this respect, it is significant that youth justice interventions both anticipate and respond to crime and delinquent behaviour. This has been established as a point of principle since the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in the United Kingdom, which stipulated that the principal function of youth justice agencies and the judicial apparatus concerned with youth crime was to prevent its occurrence.

In this way, a specific formulation of the remit and responsibilities of what has come to be known as the ‘youth justice ...