Rethinking Youth Justice Journeys: Complex Needs, Impeded Capabilities and Criminalisation

Abstract

This article rethinks youth justice policy and practice in terms of movement, challenging its dominant, static framing. Holistic services have a high travel burden, with absence extremely problematic for effective practice. Yet children’s youth justice journeys and their effects currently remain invisible. Evidence from 28 young people and 33 practitioners will demonstrate the urgent need to develop policies that do not punish children who are poorly placed to travel. The compulsory catapulting of ‘kinetic underclass’ members around locality settings suggests the need for policy innovation, with new ‘minimum standards’ providing effective, child-centred opportunities through comprehensive yet malleable minimum entitlements.