Distinctive Feature of Youth Justice Policy in the Late 20th - Essay Example

166343 INTRODUCTION It is still believed that the age of transition from childhood to adulthood is the cause of uncertainty and unstable behaviour leading to offending1. Whenever youth offending is mentioned, it is difficult not to remember the unfortunate case of Jamie Bulger that sent in motion many agencies and government to prevent, control and contain similar occurrences in future2. Youth justice policy in the recent years has undoubtedly gaining more and more momentum with new dynamics and thoughtful approaches. As the youth criminology at times overwhelms the country, it is impossible to rest on the past policies and has become absolutely important for government to continuously evolve better policies for the betterment of youth, and hence, the society. Youth offence has become an inglorious chapter that keeps threatening present and future both. The statement that youth policies and programmes of recent years are dominated by politics of fear is right. There are many kinds of fears in society, community, country, political circles, families and schools which are connected with youth offending and they are not without historical evidence. Every country has to develop politics of fear because youth could be destructive if not guided properly. This study has tried to locate the politics of fear in the connected policies and explore the causes leading to youth delinquency. CAUSES In recent years, there has been an enormous increase in crime rate of youth, and sociologists are quick to offer reasons and causes3. Causes of youth crime, could be anything between psychological, emotional, and behavioural. Sometimes there need not be reality in it. Youth minds are absolutely fertile in imagination and most of the grievances are imagined, as we saw recently with the killer of Virginia Tech. Youth also have a problem of blaming parents, schools, teachers, governments, entire system and the entire world, but never themselves. Nevertheless, there is a psychologically affected group, which is rather rare, that blames themselves for everything, and they are not in majority. These are the people more prone to guilt and self-harming and might become suicidal. They are small in number. The usual youth offender is belligerent, fighting all alone against the entire world, teaching them a lesson, or perishing in the effort. This is the Chivalrous martyr youth offender who has a certain nobility in him and need not be a major threat to society if guided properly. Ordinary offender is more interested in crime, advantage, getting rich, rolling in money, possessing things that he had seen in the rich youth. The recent trends of dealing with such offenders with kid gloves on, have not impressed all the sociologists and legal strategists4. Deprivation and poverty in life is a major problem for the youth, who would like to live a better life. Single parenting could be another major cause. Parental responsibility is one of the major factors, but due to many connected problems, has remained an extremely difficult area to approach5. Family break-up, unstabilized relationships, disappearance of a much loved parent could turn the child into a loner. Sometimes bitter divorces, court struggle, fallen heroes in either of the parents, parents deserting children for another relationship, parent with a terminal illness or HIV, bickering parents, parents who are poor and unemployed and being unable to support their children adequately could be other causes. There are parents, especially women who had children through teen pregnancies, could be bitter about their social status, further dwindling prospects of marriage or having a relationship and they might blame it all on the hapless children. A child that has been brought up as a specifically unwanted one develops a serious sense of guilt and grievance that could make it a criminal in later life. Ignored, marginalised children will feel that the world has wronged them. Environment, neighbourhood where the child is growing also could be important factors. Some neighbourhoods somehow develop a crime culture and every child that is brought up in that neighbourhood follows the footsteps of an earlier criminal. Sometimes it baffles the social scientists who wonder at the ‘herd mentality’ and the compulsion that should keep up the neighbourhood tradition. Beyond the limit smoking, bad company, drugs, unrealistic needs, sexual hallucination and illogical sexual demands could lead to crime are additional causes. Drug and sex related crimes are on the rise all over the world. Wrong idolisation of negative heroes injudiciously glorified by the media, attraction and power portrayed by the wrong people, desire to be powerful, unchallenged, rich and in control could be further causes. It is necessary to remember that most of the youth crimes are emotionally and psychologically based and the causes could be sheer imagination. In spite of that there are many contributory factors like bullying at school or in the neighbourhood, wrong company, peer pressure, lack of teacher support, lack of parental support, non-performance at school or games, attempt to become popular, grievance against an individual, imaginary or otherwise can lead into it. Some children have genuine grievances with physically and mentally abusing parents and difficult relatives. Urge to prove oneself could be other causes. Poor housing and homelessness could be factors too. There are more severe aspects to this problem like gender inequality in most of the ethnic groups and trying to control the present and future of the women. Girls could feel deprived due to such societal discrimination. Worse than this, the realities of cultural differences, colour, race, religion and background differences could lead to problems and youth belonging to minority communities, culture and religion, would go on nursing the marginalised feelings that would make them belligerent. We have seen how easy it was to convert a Britain bred Muslim youth from an ordinary carefree youth into a suicide bomber with a few preachings from the practiced venomous tongue. Usually a child gets intimidated by its parents, friends, surroundings, teachers and by larger community for some reason or other and unfortunately, this fear, as the child grows up and becomes more confident, develops into acute resentment. As the individual is not a child any more, and is physically and mentally capable of harming the wider community or the target individual/group, youth will think that it is time to show his resentment by offending or hatred. According to him he is teaching a lesson to people who had once intimated him. The fear psychosis that had kept the child under control mainly because it was physically weak while growing up, does not hold back the child any more as it is physically capable and powerful. So what was a politics of fear at an earlier stage now becomes cause of fear for others, parents, friends, schools, teachers and community at large. Every programme in recent years have been based on such a fear, because in recent years there had been too many shootings, killings, self-harming, and increasing youth offence. Governments realise that with rampant youth offences, coming generation could be in danger and hence the country could face worse problems if youth offending is not curbed at its infancy with careful monitoring. POLICIES Curfew schemes came into vogue immediately after the introduction of Crime and disorder act, 1998 and youngsters were prevented from wondering out unaccompanied during prohibited hours6. Cautioning and final warning schemes, according to government reports and agencies, have proved to be useful and have effectively lessened legal work7. Around the beginning of 1980s there was a clear demand for youth justice policies8. Youth justice system has gained importance with youth offending teams (YOT) that exists in every local authority in England and Wales. It consists of representatives from Police, probation service, social services, health, education, drugs, alcohol misuse and housing officers. They co-ordinate with the youth justice services and make the needs of youth offenders known. It is important to find out the individual problems of youth offenders and there is no tailor made solution for youth crime. But it had been unable to contain the argument against soft handling of serious offenders9. Youth crime policies are based on the principle and the youth are vulnerable and could be manipulated easily. They are at a very impressionable age and the wrong atmosphere could change their mentality and focus. Policy also believes in stopping it where it starts. There are several intervention programmes to treat broader social problems which remain risk factors for an increasing number of youngsters. These programmes aim at improving community health and well-being by extending improved childcare to families and disadvantaged groups. In the last twenty years, a lot of work has gone into it. There are school based programmes that provide support, advice, help in reducing truancy and improve their behaviour and reduce risks of getting addicted to wrong habits. All these supports are easily available now with recent governments making continuous efforts towards attaining a better start in life for the youth. Neighbourhood renewal programmes aim at narrowing the difference between deprived and comfortable groups and improving community services. During 1998 and 1999 many sententious interventions have been introduced by curb the more difficult problems. These include Referral orders where the offender has to agree for an improved future behaviour while agencies would help him in addressing the cause of the offending behaviour. Another one is Action Plan Order, which consists of three months community service programming while the youngster remains under strict supervision for three months. This would enable the individual to focus on family and school life and the community at large. Another such programme is Reparation orders which is actually a court order that compels the person to repair the harm caused to his victim and this could be actual repair of a damaged property, or meaningful community service once again. Another one is Parenting Orders where the parent is required to attend counselling or guidance sessions where they receive constructive help in guiding and controlling problem children. Electronic tagging is one more way of intensive supervision and surveillance so the offender could not repeat the offence and law authorities are in control of his movements and intentions. Usually this is done to offenders who are between 12 and 16 and either on bail (who are called bail bandits) or on remand in local authority accommodations and are at the risk of running away or avoiding legal authorities. People are encouraged to report offences without indulging that they are after all mere youth and will improve with age. It is necessary to get involved because they might lead to better education, training or employment of the youth, while helping in drug rehabilitation, early intervention, mental health assessment and treatment and improved provisions of accommodation. Most of the governmental policies are part of their party election manifesto and youth crime has been given enormous importance today by all the political parties. When they come to power, they naturally try to evolve as many effective politicise as possible, and definitely it becomes part of wider political atmosphere. The National association for Youth Justice was established in Britain in the year 1994 as an advanced step in this direction and ever since, has been able to work with overarching philosophy and research based policy measures with a more philosophical and less legal outlook. Young offenders are not terribly penalised today and every sentence is given with a sincere eye on their rehabilitation and better future. It has created a set of values and beliefs which have become bases of legislation policy and practice and it is also compliant with human and children’s rights. Youngsters being locked in cells have been reduced drastically because psychologists are of the opinion that this trend will breed further offending or self-harming thoughts in the minds of already disturbed offenders and curtailing their activities should be reduced in favour of giving them freedom while guiding them in a better way to discourage offences. They also should feel that they are trusted to a large extent and are responsible enough to take their own right decisions and many offenders have taken advantage of this philosophical approach. Definitely there is enormous risk connected to the philosophy, which is more or less ably managed10. There are more inspections, reports and reviews on reducing the gap in the neighbourhood by empowering the parents of such deprived children. Education and training of young people have taken a new meaning with more constructive programmes coming into vogue. There had been continuous progress in building a secure, crimeless society and government holds itself responsible for any deviation from these goals. Today’s youth justice is meaningfully based on the dictum that ‘Every child matters’. All the agencies involved have an important role to play in supporting offending youngsters and the role is not bringing them to justice any more. There is a multi-disciplinary approach and developments getting involved in statutory children and young people’s plans, give careful attention to youth requirements, safeguarding youth rights, Monitoring children databases giving information relevant to their welfare is considered to be a good step. Exploratory phase of research shows that an understanding is developing between the legal authorities and the young offenders. Youth justice and criminal offence act, 1999 is a major step towards curbing offences with a proclaimed desire to ‘meet the needs and the deeds’. This was followed by many acts during the recent years and labour government has taken great initiative in combating the youth crime11. CONCLUSION There is no doubt that communities go through a lot of tension and fear due to youth offenders. With our urban living nowadays mostly all people, especially elders live alone and time and again youth offenders have created atmosphere of hate, fear and intimidation to this vulnerable group. There are reports where elderly people proclaim that they had to give up their beloved home, garden, friends, and neighbourhood and go into care homes, because of groups and groups of young offenders damaging the property, creating fear psychology while getting out of the house or shopping. This is an unfortunate phenomenon that is happening everywhere and more and more policies should come out to discourage such practices. No doubt, most of the policies are based on philosophy of helping the young offenders to turn the corner by rehabilitating them and solving their problems. It is also necessary to spare a thought to their unfortunate victims of thoughtless tyranny. There are places where people sell off their property simply to avoid the unpleasantness of dealing with youth offenders. These groups could be anywhere, in the neighbourhood, shopping centres, idling places, parks, transports, underground transport corners, attacking small children or women or elderly people. If they are part of a belligerent group, they might attack anyone anywhere. Recent youth killings are part of such terrifying groups. Such groups make the entire community to feel unsafe and apprehensive. It is definitely necessary to rehabilitate the offending youngsters, but policies should be more and more directed towards the safety of their potential and real victims too. Here the offenders, victims, communities, cultures, civilisation of the country itself have to be protected, because offences of any kind that threaten to go beyond a certain limit could be damaging all, including offenders themselves. Also politics of fear is real from all points of view. there are many youth offending theories which would inform us that youth offending is necessary because if offending and crime are not in existence, there will never be any change in society which will stay as a peaceful stagnant pond without change, development and ambition. These theorists show American and French revolutions as examples, which brought change not only in those countries, but also in the entire western world. it is easy to agree on this hypothesis; but it is difficult to forget the price of American war of independence in terms of disturbance, property loss, loss of young lives. Condoning the massacre of entire royalty, nobility, intellectuals through sheer anarchy and the continuous loss of life during those brutal days of terror when murderous groups went berserk by guillotining people without reason or rhyme in France is definitely impossible to glorify such chain of events. . Which country would like to have a repentance of such a scene and which change could justify such horror where man became a monster? Naturally communities and civilisations have to safeguard themselves from similar anarchies by making proper policies and placing curbs. In the recent decades, there had been commendable effort towards a meaningful policy to lesson the impact. It is said today that the progressive politics has given way to politics of fear and youth offence is one of the reasons12. Youth criminals are the causes of many governmental delays, problems and conflicts13. But it is necessary to remember that even though the policies are governed by fear politics, they are necessary and all the youth cannot be punished harshly. At the time when they need more guidance and less punishment, it is necessary for the government and connected agencies to provide that particular support which might change the mindset of an offending youth, thus saving his life as well as avoiding the danger to society. There is no doubt that most of the policies are directed by politics of fear. In this very fear, concern for the younger lives too exists and it is necessary to mode that combination of concern and fear in safeguarding the community and guiding the youngsters away from war path simultaneously. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Arthur, Raymond (2004), Punishing parents for the crime of their children, Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 44(3): 233-253. 2. Dhami, Mandeep et al, Restorative final warnings, policy and practice. The Howard Journal Vol 45 No 2. May, 2006. 3. Floud, Jean and Young, Warren (1981), Dangerousness and Criminal Justice, Heinemann, London. 4. Gray, Patricia, The Politics of Risk and young offenders, Offenders Experiences of Social Exclusion & Restorative Justice" (2005) British Journal of Criminology 45: 938-957. 5. Graham, John (1995), Young people and crime, Home office. 6. Goldson, Barry (1999), Youth Justice: Contemporary Policy and Practice, Ashgate, Altershot. 7. Lee, Maggy (1998), Youth, Crime and Police Work, Macmillan, Hampshire. 8. Muncie, John (2004), Youth and Crime, 2nd edn., Sage Publications, London. 9. Parker, Howard, Maggie Casburn and David Turnbull (1981), Receiving Juvenile Justice, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 10. Pitts, John (1999), Working with Yooung Offenders, Macmillan, Hampshire. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.libdems.org.uk/government/the-politics-of-fear-the-end-of-progressive-politics-part-one.11434.html 2. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2068449,00.html 3. Read More