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Without effective intervention adolescent offending has been found to be resistant to change and antisocial behaviour, including violent offending behaviour, often continues into adulthood (Tarolla et al., 2002). However, a systematic review of the existing literature revealed that there was an urgent need for contemporary empirically based interventions with aggressive adolescent offenders. A relatively consistent finding within this population is a perceptual bias towards perceiving ambiguous facial cues as displaying anger, leading some theorists to suggest a possible explanatory pathway (Calvete & Orue, 2011). Thus, the current dissertation extends this concept by exploring the efficacy of a computer-based retraining programme designed to shift these biases, at reducing subsequent aggressive behaviour. Utilising a sample taken from a secure children's home in South Wales, the hypothesised association between performance on the facial recognition retraining programme and a reduction in subsequent aggressive behaviour was elucidated. An indepth case study of one of the participants, including case formulation, functional analysis, and psychometric evaluation, outlined the parameters of this change at an individual level. One such psychometric measure was the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory - 2nd Edition (STAXI-2; Spielberger, 1999). A critique of the use of the measure within forensic settings I found that high face validity means that when the STAXI-2 is used as the basis for treatment decisions it should be administered and interpreted in conjunction with a recognised measure of social desirability bias to improve the measure's validity. An overall conclusion is drawn and the implications of the study on further research are discussed.

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The research critically examined the use of juvenile Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) in the context of the intelligence-led policing model, the Coalition Government’s crime control agenda (in which the only test set for the police is to cut crime), and child safeguarding orthodoxy. It represents the first examination of the use of juvenile CHIS since the introduction of the enabling legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). The researcher was given privileged access to police practitioners and other professionals, from whom the primary data was collected. Secondary data included a wide variety of internal documents and reports relating to the use of juvenile CHIS by an urban police force in England. The data were analysed thematically against the background of the relevant scholarly literature. The research found that even though the use of juvenile CHIS is limited, their use presents significant issues for the police, but currently fewer for other professionals who largely are ignorant of policing activity in this context. The research established that the use of juvenile CHIS was subject to the strictest controls through the authorisation systems and procedures, mandated by RIPA, which were in place and strictly adhered to, with the welfare of the CHIS and safeguarding issues beyond their deployment/authorisation given the highest priority. Indeed, the data collected for this study demonstrated an absence of negative life outcomes for those whose use had been authorised. However, the research highlighted a continuing institutional nervousness around the use of juvenile CHIS, which inter alia suggests an aversion to the risks associated with their use that might not always be justified, notwithstanding a lack of engagement with professionals who, in many cases, may be able to assist in informing the risk assessment and the duty of care provisions required under statute for juveniles used by the police in this way. The study also illustrated the challenges that the police face in properly assessing risks (particularly the competence of officers to assess the psychological and moral risks that are always associated with the use of CHIS). The research contains a number of recommendations for policing and for wider public policy. Critically, it argues for further research in this important area.

Community reparation for young offenders was introduced under section 67 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and it involves the completion of unpaid work, such as painting and decorating, litter picking and graffiti removal. The Youth Justice Board (YJB) places significant emphasis on community reparation as a successful sanction, but concern has been raised about the poor quality of workplace provision and the deteriorating performance of the disposal. Crucially however, there has been no research explicitly focusing on youth justice community reparation within England and Wales. This study, therefore, reviews and integrates the research and evaluation evidence base for both adult community service and youth justice community reparation and as a result, establishes the most comprehensive model for the effective delivery of unpaid work, including the acquisition of employability skills. It then examines community reparation in practice within a single Youth Offending Team (YOT), utilising a combined methods approach and drawing upon the experiences of young offenders and their supervisors. This research shows that community reparation in practice does not match the available evidence base of what is thought to be effective. In particular, the YOT studied has adopted a formulaic approach to workplace allocation, with an over-reliance on low cost menial tasks. As a result, offenders and their supervisors are frustrated that such placements do not provide employability skills, a key factor associated with reductions in reoffending. This study concludes that youth justice community reparation has the potential to be a highly successful re-integrative intervention for young people, but it argues that more attention needs to be paid to the rehabilitative potential of the disposal. The study also suggests there is a need to disseminate an ‘evidenced-based best practice model’ for the successful delivery of community reparation to all YOTs, sentencers and relevant Inspectorate staff. This will contribute to increasing staff awareness and commitment to the disposal, making a valuable potential contribution to reductions in the use of imprisonment and its associated costs.

There is a great deal of research that aims to explain youth offending in the UK and in other Western countries. However, this is a new area of research in Vietnamese academic literature in criminology. There is very little academic research that aims to explain the factors behind the public and political perception of an increase in youth offending and the increase in prosecutions for some types of offence (physical assault and theft) in Vietnam in recent years. Both the two existing Vietnamese studies based on the collection of primary data are relatively small scale and centre on interviews with young people. One study shows that young people tend to explain their behaviour through external influences, particularly from their peer group. The other study highlights a number of issues, including peer group, community influences and family problems. Most of the current Vietnamese research on youth offending is based on the analysis of official data which is used to illustrate patterns of youth offending, rather than explaining the causes. The overall aims of the research are to explore the relative importance of different factors associated with youth offending in Vietnam, and thus suggest the implications for intervention. The study is based on a survey of the four national educational institutions where young people (aged 12-18) are incarcerated, if they have committed less serious crimes (such as theft) or are aged 12-14 and have committed a more serious crime (such as robbery or murder). The questionnaire survey included only the young people on educational programmes (N=2,009) and did not include those on vocational programmes (N=777) for practical reasons. The questionnaire survey was followed up by interviews with young people (N=98) and staff (N=34) across the four institutions. The questionnaire data was subjected to different types of analysis: descriptive statistics, principal components analysis and multi-level modelling. Interview data was analysed through content and thematic analysis. The different types of data and analysis in this study revealed some differences in emphasis in the relative importance of different factors in the lives of young people and youth offending in the Vietnamese context. For example, interviews with young people focussed more on peer group and individual factors and interviews with staff focussed strongly on family issues. Analysis of the questionnaire survey data revealed the importance of on-line gaming in relation to theft, along with family based issues such as alcohol misuse. Overall, looking across the data and types of analysis, family circumstances (such as poor parenting, homelessness, children running away from home, and alcohol misuse) were the most important in this study. Family circumstances were followed by the accumulation of external factors (such as gaming and peer group influences) and individual characteristics (such as low self-control). Of particular note is the issue of on-line gaming in relation to the association with theft. At a regional level, the multilevel models showed significant differences between provinces in predicting different types of offence: young people originating from Phu Yen are less likely to commit theft, while those from Phu Yen and Tay Ninh are found to be more likely to be charged for public order offences. Serious crime is more likely to happen in Ho Chi Minh City. More broadly, the study illustrates the consequences of rapid social change in Vietnam; and, the impacts of industrialization, modernization and globalization processes.

"C'est notre regard qui enferme souvent les autres dans leurs plus étroites appartenances, et c'est notre regard aussi qui peut les libérer." Amin Maalouf, Les identités meurtrières, 1998. Ces trois dernières décennies ont vu une juxtaposition de dispositifs censés répondre à la délinquance juvénile. Notre thèse est une réflexion sur le traitement de celle-ci par une partie des acteurs et des actrices de la chaîne de la réaction sociale, sur la conception et la configuration de la justice des mineur-e-s, tant au civil qu’au pénal. Elle se fonde sur la façon dont les professionnel-le-s de l’éducation, notamment, déterminent et président aux choix institutionnels de réponses à cette question éminemment sociale et indubitablement politique. Si, en droit, la loi pénale se dote de spécificités en fonction de l’âge, elle se doit d’être aveugle au sexe, au genre et à l’ethnie. En effet, dans sa conception, en tant qu’institution, mais surtout en tant qu’idéal, la justice vise à dépasser l’arbitraire. Par le biais des institutions chargées de sa matérialité, par les acteurs et actrices de celles-ci, et les actes par lesquels s’opérationnalise le contrôle de la jeunesse, elle n’est, toutefois, étanche ni au système patriarcal, ni au prisme de l’ethnicisation. En dépit de l’expression de volontés manifestes d’égalité, les pratiques et discours des professionnel-le-s rencontré-e-s témoignent d’une mise en œuvre différenciée, selon les représentations véhiculées et portées sur tel ou tel marqueur identitaire, donnant à l’application de ces politiques de protection ou de punition de la jeunesse, un genre ou encore une coloration ethnique qui se superposent, voire s’entremêlent. En s’acquittant de l’apprentissage de la conformité aux mineur-e-s confié-e-s sur décision judiciaire, les professionnel-le-s participent à la perpétuation d’assignations pré déterminées : les mécanismes de (re) production institutionnelle de sous catégories révèlent alors un net écart entre le traitement des garçons et celui des filles. Ils dévoilent, par ailleurs, les tensions soutenues entre injonction à l’individualisation des réponses et difficulté à dépasser la dichotomie féminin/masculin, figeant, en quelque sorte, dans un registre biologique, les grilles d’analyse des comportements des adolescent-e-s. S’il s’agit, pour les un-e-s comme pour les autres, de rectifier les processus d’intériorisation de normes sociales en échec et de former des sujets responsables de leurs actes, le prisme du genre divulgue le laborieux ou plus précisément, l’impossible pari de l’individualisation. Il met ainsi en lumière un contrôle différencié des garçons et des filles qui, pour les premiers, s’élabore à partir de l’acte de délinquance, mais qui, pour les secondes, est davantage guidé par une idée si ce n’est une idéologie de la féminité. Les trajectoires individuelles s’en trouvent impactées : là où les filles voient les leurs possiblement réversibles, les garçons sont, en quelque sorte, « condamnés à la pénalité ». Le genre offre, par ailleurs, en sa qualité de catégorie d’analyse, l’opportunité d’observer une division sexuée des tâches entre hommes et femmes au travail. De surcroit, par le truchement de l’intersectionnalité, la mobilisation du versant ethnique connote les prises en charge. Une modélisation des pratiques des professionnel-le-s se dessine alors, témoignant de la difficulté à accompagner dans les processus de socialisation, la formation de l’individualité et l’émergence d’une conscience apte à faire des choix. Pour rendre possible la relation éducative, quelles sont les pratiques effectives ? Quelles contraintes reposent sur les acteurs et les actrices ? Quelles sont les incidences que cette modélisation induit sur les jeunes ? / "It is our gaze that often encloses others in their closest sense of belonging, and it is also our gaze that can liberate them."Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity: violence and the need to belong, 1998 It is no exaggeration to say that these last three decades have seen a juxtaposition of measures supposed to respond to juvenile delinquency: this thesis is a reflection on the treatment of this issue by some of social chain’s actors, on the conception and the configuration of juvenile justice, in its civil and penal aspects. It is based on the way in which education professionals, in particular, determine and preside over the institutional choices of response to this eminently social and undoubtedly political issue. If the criminal law has specific features according to age, it is supposed to be blind to sex, gender and ethnicity. Indeed, in its conception as an institution but especially as an ideal, justice aims at overcoming arbitrariness. Through the institutions responsible for its implementation, through their actors or their acts by which youth control is carried out, the law is, however, not impervious to either the patriarchal system or to ethnicity. Even though they show a patent will/wish for equality, the practices and discourses of the actors attest to a differentiated implementation, according to the representations conveyed and carried on this or that identity marker, giving the application of these protection or punishment policies, gender or ethnic hues that can overlap or even be intertwined. As they teach educational standards to minors under legal supervision, the professionals participate in the perpetuation of social representations: the institutional (re) production mechanisms of subcategories indicate a clear difference between the treatment of boys and girls. Moreover, they reveal the tensions sustained between the injunction to individualized answers and the difficulty of going beyond the feminine / masculine dichotomy, which, in a way, fixes in a biological register the grids of analysis of teenagers’ behaviors. Indeed, if for the ones as for the others, it is a matter of correcting the failing processes of internalization of social standards and of training subjects to be responsible for their acts, the prism of gender reveals the laborious even impossible bet of individualization. It thus highlights a differentiated control of boys and girls, which for the former is developed from the act of delinquency but for the latter, is guided more by an idea or an ideology of femininity. Personal paths are consequently affected; when girls see their paths possibly reversible, boys are in a way “condemned to penalty”. It also offers, as a category of analysis, the opportunity to observe a gendered division of tasks between men and women at work. Finally, through intersectionality, the mobilization of the ethnic side connotes support and then draws a model of professional practices that demonstrate the difficulty of accompanying, in socialization processes, the formation of individuality and the emergence of a subject responsible for his or her actions. In order to make the educational relationship possible, what practices are adopted? What are the constraints for the actors? What room for maneuver is there and above all, what effects are induced on young people?

Introduction. Research has shown that there is a high prevalence of mental health difficulties in young offenders. The Youth Offending Service (YOS) uses a structured assessment tool, ASSET to identify risk factors and inform interventions to address identified risks. Mental health difficulties are one of the known risk factors for offending in young people. Very little is known about the process of mental health assessment and what influences Youth Offending Workers’ approach to assessments. The assessment of mental health difficulties has implications for access to mental health services for young people. Therefore, it was felt to be important to understand the assessment process in order to identify how to improve the quality of the assessment. This study explores the factors that influence Youth Offending Worker’s assessment of mental health difficulties in young offenders. Method. Nine Youth Offending Workers from three Youth Offending Teams in South Wales were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The content of these interviews were analysed using constructivist grounded theory. Results. Four themes relating to Youth Offending Workers’ assessment of mental health difficulties in young offenders were identified: ‘Organisational context’, ‘The Youth Offending Worker’, ‘The young person’s context’ and ‘Reaching a decision’. Discussion. The four themes interact with one another and impact on the Youth Offending Workers’ assessment of mental health difficulties in young offenders. The findings have a number of clinical and service implications for the Youth Offending Service as well as Clinical Psychology Provision. This includes the need for Youth Offending Workers to; receive more training around mental health difficulties, to have access to clinical supervision and have a better understanding of mental health services. This should help to improve the quality of mental health assessment, ensuring young people’s mental health difficulties are identified so that they receive appropriate support to address these difficulties.

Parental responsibility for young offenders is a social construct which is ambiguous and taken for granted. The responsibilisation of parents and carers not only makes them culpable for their child's criminal conduct but generalises the parenting role, giving insufficient attention to differentiating factors; for example, generalisations in relation to ethnic minority groups and gender-specific issues. Therefore, the concept needs further examination than is provided by the current literature in order to clarify its inferences aimed at parents, whose personal circumstances differ. The current literature in this area focuses on the concept of parental responsibility, either being a cause of youth offending or as a rationale for unnecessary state intervention into family lives. However, based on the rights of the child as an offender, this thesis argues for a clearer understanding of the phrase 'a lack of parental responsibility' when attributed to parents of young offenders. This thesis gives greater clarity to the social construct of parental responsibility for young offenders by drawing on the disciplines of law, criminology, psychology and economics. The developmental approach proposed by Professor Rutherford is highlighted as an alternative form of intervention aimed at young offenders in contrast to formal state intervention. The approach proposes use of the family, school and community as means of diverting young offenders away from reoffending. This thesis expands on the approach by identifying specific methods of implementation into these institutions in order to ensure the child's rights are met. Therefore, this thesis brings to the fore the recognition of parental autonomy in relation to young offenders rather than the traditional view of parental accountability for their child's conduct. It analyses the elements that make up a lack of parental responsibility, which contributes to the existing literature in this area, and the implications the phrase has for legal and social policy.