This event will launch research report Making Youth Justice: Local penal cultures and differential outcomes – lessons and prospects for policy and practice, written by Professor Barry Goldson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Liverpool and Dr Damon Briggs, Head of Curriculum at Frontline.
The report is underpinned by detailed quantitative and qualitative research showing that youth justice is ‘made’ not only by national legislative and policy frameworks but also by practices that are operationalised at Youth Offending Service/Local Authority Area-level. In this sense, the otherwise discrete jurisdiction of England and Wales is, in effect, stratified and segmented via local penal cultures that give rise to differential outcomes (particularly when measured in terms of rates of custodial detention). The report illustrates such differential outcomes and provides incisive insights into how they come about. It provides vital lessons and prospects for policy and practice.