Jones, Denis W.
(2012)
Conditions for sustainable decarceration strategies for young offenders.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
Between 1978 and 1992 the number of juvenile offenders aged under 17 in England
and Wales who were removed from home under sentence and sent to institutions such
as detention centres, borstals, youth custody institutions or residential Community
Homes with Education fell from 14,000 to 1,800. This thesis documents how this
significant decarceration came about, and why it has been given little attention in the
criminological literature, placing it in context of developments in juvenile justice
legislation and practice between 1965 and 1996 and theories of policy change. It
suggests that the key development was the funding of charity and voluntary sector
organisations to provide Intensive Intermediate Treatment programmes to juvenile
courts as an alternative to custody, and the development of a small group of
practitioners willing to act as campaigning advocates for young offenders in court.
Interviews with key politicians, civil servants, academics and practitioners from this
period are used to explore these trends in more detail, and consideration is given to
the respective roles of the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social
Security and the tensions between them over responsibility for young offenders. The
development is then situated within theories and examples of decarceration,
deinstitutionalization, abolitionism and reductionism, drawing on attempts to close
institutions or to reduce institutionalization in the fields of youth justice, mental health
and learning difficulties in the UK and other countries. Alternative explanations of
what happened in juvenile justice in England and Wales are considered and
challenged. Conclusions are then drawn as to the conditions that are necessary for any
decarceration strategy to be successful and sustainable.
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