JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS Chair: Chris Trotter Chair: Chris Trotter

139 The introduction of these innovations within the Belgian local police is growing slowly. Some units are in a leading position, others are dealing with some financial or policy obstructions.

New trends are mostly based on ‘island innovation’ projects and are not in common for the whole Belgian police.

Using semi-structured interviews with experts on innovation and the use of technology within the Belgian police, we found out in what kind of situations the Belgian police used technology the most and what they might use in the future. This study also explored the challenges and preconditions needed to develop an efficient use of technology in 2020. If the Belgian police want to deal with the future problems of society and want to be part of the new ‘digital’

society some challenges might to be intrude.

2.21 JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS

0171 - INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO YOUTH DEVIANCE AND PARENTING STYLES:

EXPLORING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF SOCIAL CLASS IN CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

Jasmina Arnez (United Kingdom)¹

1 - Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford

In general, most adolescents across the spectrum of social strata deviate in some way during their transition to adulthood. Notwithstanding the ubiquitous nature of troubling behaviour among young people, research in the UK has shown that it is typically children from disadvantaged backgrounds that are propelled into the youth justice system. Also, their path dependencies seem to begin before their contact with criminal justice officials, namely in schools. In addition, some researchers argue that contemporary socioeconomic and political circumstances in the UK and elsewhere have made middle class parenting practices normative and have established a symbolic link between working class parenting and juvenile deviance.

At the same time, the possible troubles of middle class youth as well as how they might be triggered by their parents’ child rearing remain largely unarticulated in academic discourse and absent in criminological research. This paper draws on the narratives of 15 professionals that work directly with young people and their parents in schools as well as the youth justice-, mental health- and voluntary sectors. It examines whether young people’s problems and their parents’ coping mechanisms could also be shaped by institutional responses according to their social location. In general, it aims to open up the debate about the relationship between different manifestation of youth deviance, parenting and social class as well as to question the existing normative and legal frameworks in the UK, but possibly with wider international relevance. In doing so, it presents a theoretical framework that could better conceptualize the balance between structure and agency when children and their parents cope with delinquency and try to negotiate new identities. Most importantly, it makes suggestions to improve services for young people that have offended or are deemed to be ‘at risk’ of offending due to their troubling behaviour.

0172 - LOOKING BACK ON JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS … A “MARK” OF INDELIBLE INK?

Ilse Luyten (Belgium)¹ 1 - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Throughout the 20th century, children ‘at risk’ are subject of several interventions, in and outside the juvenile justice system. What we already know about these juvenile interventions is from the perspective of ‘experts’ (judges, social workers, educators, psychologists).

However, the expert voice of (former) children of the juvenile justice system themselves is

141 view can give another insight in the importance of judicial experiences and how this has an influence (impact) on their lives in the long run.

In this contribution, I present the preliminary findings of this qualitative research project.

The impact of interventions appears to be twofold:

(1) They have an impact on e.g. schooling, relationships, youngster’s feelings, etc. while in the juvenile justice system;

(2) They also have an impact on further life domains in the long run (e.g. employment, parenthood, social network, feelings, personality, etc.).

In other words, these interventions might have side effects (both positive and negative) on the youngsters’ lives long after they attained majority.

After a descriptive analysis, some reflections will be made about these findings.

(Research funded by InterUniversity Attraction Pole (IAPVII/22) – Belspo)

0173 - IMPLEMENTING AND EMBEDDING A NEW YOUTH JUSTICE STRATEGY: MULTI-AGENCY PERSPECTIVES

Laura Robertson (United Kingdom)¹ 1 - University of Glasgow

The Whole System Approach (WSA) is a recently introduced Scottish youth justice strategy, based on inter-agency working; early and effective intervention; diversion from prosecution;

and, the provision of community alternatives to secure care and custody. As a social policy, it takes a multi-agency approach in seeking to address multiple issues often associated with involvement in offending, including housing, health, education and employment. This paper is based upon research with practitioners and managers from different agencies involved in the delivery of youth justice exploring their understandings of the various strands of the WSA;

factors that have impeded and facilitated its development; and inter-agency decision making, with a key objective of discovering to what extent it has achieved a holistic approach to children / young people who offend. Interviews were practitioners have found that through a move to a greater focus on early intervention and diversionary inter-agency working in practice, there has been a shared commitment developed between various agencies involved in addressing youth offending, although organisational structural and cultural change has not been without its pressures. The paper will principally focus upon practitioners’ perspectives on early and effective intervention and diversion from prosecution, exploring how these processes are perceived to have been implemented and the inter-agency decision making processes underpinning them. It will attend to how the WSA has been conceived to have provided processes and practices which holistically address the needs of the young person, seeking to answer the question, to what extent is it actually a whole system approach?

2.22 POLICE AND PUBLIC ORDER: INTERACTION EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS