Youth Justice in Scotland : Still Fit for the Future?

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Dyer, Fiona and Gibson, Ross and Morrison, Pamela and Murphy, Carole (2024) Youth Justice in Scotland : Still Fit for the Future? Children's and Young People's Centre for Justice, Glasgow.

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Abstract

Looking back at the paper, Youth Justice in Scotland: Fixed in the Past or Fit for the Future, written 10 years ago, highlights how far Scotland has travelled in meeting the ambitions we set at CYCJ. During these 10 years, progress has at times felt slow, particularly with the impact of the pandemic. However, on reflection, it is encouraging to see that we are continuing a trajectory of becoming a rights-respecting nation for children and young people in conflict with the law. During the past 10 years, we have had some influential papers, reviews, changes in Government policy, and significant pieces of legislation passed in the Scottish Parliament. The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, the UNCRC Incorporation (Scotland) Act 2024, the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, and the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019, have all impacted the direction of travel in Scotland. The very influential Independent Care Review, which spoke to thousands of children and young people, leading to The Promise (2020), made many recommendations; and our own CYCJ Rights Respecting report remains influential to Youth Justice policy today (Lightowler, 2020). Due to these significant pieces of legislation, and the changes that have been achieved in Scotland, CYCJ felt it was time to review the ambitions we set in 2014 and set new ambitions to be achieved within the next 10 years. This paper is structured into four parts. Firstly, we reflect on the state of youth justice 10 years ago when the first paper was published and the changes that have occurred since. We then examine the interplay of policy, research and practice in meeting our five ambitions; showing the influence of policy and research on direct practice. In the third section, we turn to the question of rights and what these mean for the current system, outlining three specific Articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) relating to children’s rights for those who are in conflict with the law. Lastly, we conclude by summarising our new set of ambitions for Scotland to achieve over the next 10 years.

ORCID iDs

Dyer, Fiona ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0455-357X, Gibson, Ross, Morrison, Pamela and Murphy, Carole;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)