“They’re Just Children at the End of the Day” How Is Child First Justice Applied to Children Who Commit Serious Crimes?

Abstract

Child First (CF), the approach to youth justice now endorsed by the Youth Justice Board in England and Wales, centres around seeing children as children and meeting their needs in a child-focused way. CF opposes its predecessor, the risk-based approach, which focused on actuarial measurements of risk and led to net-widening, the overuse of custody, and harsher sentencing. As the current strategic approach for youth justice in England and Wales, it is essential to consider its applicability for all offence types, including the most serious. This study aimed to begin the exploration of this under-researched area by identifying the opinions of youth justice professionals on the application of theory to practice. This small-scale exploratory study, comprising five in-depth interviews with youth justice practitioners based in rural Wales, found a consensus amongst respondents that CF should apply to all offences, regardless of their seriousness, but with recognition that some factors centred around the child themselves and their relationship with their youth justice worker and with other services/the public may have an impact on this. Respondents suggested recommendations to counter these problems, leading to recommendations for future research to further embed CF at all levels of youth justice operation.

1. Introduction

Child First (CF) is a positive approach to youth justice working developed in England and Wales centred around seeing children as children, prioritising their best interests through meeting their needs in a child-focused way, collaborating with children, and diverting them from stigma [1]. Originating in Wales [2], it is now the “strategic approach and central guiding principle” for youth justice practice across the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales [1]. Whilst there is a growing evidence base for its effectiveness [3], there is less research focused specifically on applying CF to children who offend1 more seriously. This is vital if CF is to become a robust and lasting approach to the whole of youth justice, which this study begins in its small-scale exploration of the opinions of those delivering CF justice to children, namely, youth justice practitioners. Through semi-structured interviews, this study explored the following question: how applicable do youth justice practitioners believe CF is when the child has committed a serious offence? In England and Wales, children who have offended work directly with youth justice practitioners within multi-agency Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) (formed through the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, discussed later). Youth justice practitioners work with children at all stages of youth justice, from prevention and diversion through to custody and resettlement, thereby giving them close contact with a wide range of justice-involved children and positioning them uniquely to consider the applicability of CF for more serious offences.

This article will begin by briefly examining the risk-based approach previously used in England and Wales, followed by an exploration of CF and its critiques, particularly in the context of more serious offending. The study presented in this article seeks to highlight a gap in the literature, looking at the opinions of youth justice practitioners on the applicability of CF to serious offending. Conclusions are drawn from the data and discussed in relation to their contribution to this important and developing area of research.

2. Risk vs. Child First Justice

2.1. The Risk-Focus of “New Youth Justice”

Prior to the recent change in direction towards positive approaches, youth justice was characterised by risk. “New youth justice” emerged from the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which fostered harsh sentencing and individual responsibilisation, centralising the risk factor prevention paradigm (RFPP [5]). The RFPP surfaced in the 1990s, alongside increased actuarial methods [6], with its main principle being to counteract a range of “risk factors” for criminal behaviour, the identification of which was based on statistical associations, applying quantitative predictability to youth crime [7,8]. These risk factors were identified through studies such as The Cambridge Study [9] and the Rochester Youth Development Study [10], which have been criticised for over-simplifying assumptions, exaggerating claims of causality, and ignoring structural factors that contribute to a child’s propensity to commit a crime, such as the sociocultural contexts of poverty, social exclusion, and structural inequality [11,12]. Alongside this is criticism around a lack of a causal pathway within the statistical links made between these risk factors and criminal behaviour, or a lack of information as to how a theory of change may be applied to such circumstances [13,14].

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 also established a multi-agency approach involving Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and a Youth Justice Board (YJB)2. The multi-agency nature of YOTs brings challenges in that each agency may have a different ethos/purpose; for example, police have a public protection/justice remit, whereas social services are more welfare-orientated [16]. Critics have also pointed to the prescriptive nature of the procedures it established [17,18]. Its introduction set up a youth justice system focused on preventing youth crime from its perceived first signs of delinquency, requiring professionals to intervene with the children identified as at risk of offending, rather than those who had actually committed any crimes, which is potentially net-widening [19].

This was accompanied by a new assessment tool (Asset), which considered criminogenic risks within 12 different areas, including family, mental health, and substance use [20]. Children were treated differently depending on their assigned level of risk, ignoring the fact that not all children considered to be at “high risk” of offending go on to do so. Combining risk scores with sentencing outcomes risked the overuse of incarceration and net-widening [21,22], the reality of which is supported the statistics of the time [23]. This approach also resulted in deficit-focused negative interventions, with which children struggled to engage, further reducing effectiveness [12]. The “evidence base” behind risk-based approaches was selective, with evidence chosen that aligned with neo-liberal understandings of youth justice (see [12,24,25,26,27,28] for more discussion on this). These concerns paved the way for CF as an alternative approach to youth justice, not predicated on negative views of children as “risky” but on a more positive harnessing of children’s strengths and potential as a way to help them move away from offending.

2.2. A New Approach—Child First

CF, in its opposition to risk-based approaches, considers children as more than just their offending behaviour [29]. CF practice is child-friendly, child-appropriate, and focused on the whole child [30]. The four central tenets, as developed by the YJB from the originating theory, are as follows: seeing children as children; building pro-social identity; collaborating with children; and diverting them from stigma ([31], p.7). These are detailed more fully in

Table 1. The tenets of Child First justice (adapted from Case and Browning, 2021 [3], p. 5).

Tenet	Details of Approach and Impact
Tenet 1: Seeing children as children	Children’s best interests and needs/capacities are prioritised through child-focused and developmentally appropriate interventions. This also acknowledges external structural barriers to avoid unnecessary responsibilisation of children.
Tenet 2: Building pro-social identity for positive outcomes	Future-focused and constructive work emphasises the development of children’s strengths, skills, capacities and roles they can take on in life to build a positive pro-social identity and draw them away from offending behaviour.
Tenet 3: Collaborating with children	Children (and their carers) are actively involved in all aspects of their youth justice journey and are co-collaborators with practitioners in planning youth justice activities.
Tenet 4: Diverting children from stigma	Children are diverted from becoming criminalised through prevention (to stop them offending in the first place) and diverted from prosecution where possible (and into diversionary activities instead). Where intervention is unavoidable, it is minimal.

. It is this conceptualisation of CF that this paper considers in relation to its application for children who offend seriously.

CF involves fully engaging with the child, which the risk-based approach has been criticised for failing to do [28], and stands with (rather than against) international standards such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Beijing Rules [32]. Growing evidence for the impact and effectiveness of CF in responding to justice-involved children has been drawn from evaluations of local and national prevention programmes underpinned by CF’s principles and tenets [3]. Despite this, the practical realisation of CF has met with difficulties around mixed messages from youth justice inspectorates, system processes which still cling to risk principles (for example, although assessment processes now use AssetPlus (rather than Asset), which has moved away from scoring risk factors, it is still dominated by risk rather than having a positive strengths-focus; see [33] for more discussion on this), insufficient training for staff (and managers reverting to “risk”), and the agencies (apart from YOTs) engaged with youth justice practice not being conversant with its tenets and their application (particular difficulties being noted with the police and courts; see [34]) [35]. Coupled with this is the question of whether children who have offended very seriously can be helped by a positive, child-centric approach, which is where this discussion now turns.

3. Addressing Serious Offending by Children

In England and Wales (year ending March 2024), “violence against the person” offences accounted for almost a third of child arrests in each of the last two years (31% in 2023 and 32% in 2024) [36]. This was followed by arrests for theft offences accounting for 18% of total arrests in each of the last two years, meaning these two offence-groups made up as many arrests as all other offence groups combined [36]. In this last year, 210 proven offences by children had the highest gravity score3 of 8, accounting for less than 1% of all proven offences (ibid.). For serious offences, it is important to consider how the CF evidence-base translates to custody and post-custody processes, as custody is more likely.

The Beyond Youth Custody (BYC) research project produced a robust evidence-base to challenge and advance policy and practice for the effective resettlement of children after custody, finding that successful resettlement should be seen as a personal journey involving the development of pro-social identity [38]. This developed into the overtly CF-based “Constructive Resettlement”, emphasising strengths-based working to develop children’s capacities and potential [39]. This chimes with the first tenet of CF, pro-social identity development, whereby youth justice professionals provide both personal and structural help [40]. Constructive Resettlement provides children with constructive activities (A), interactions (I), and roles (R), described as giving “fresh AIR” and is part of a CF theory of change [13]. BYC also established five critical characteristics for support, coined the “5Cs”: constructive, co-created, customised, consistent, and coordinated [38]. This contrasts sharply with risk-based approaches, which lack such a theory of change and thus could not explain how risk factors related to (re)offending [41]. However, BYC research and the subsequent development of Constructive Resettlement provides CF with such a theory of change, helping to explain relationships between education, desistance, resistance, and positive outcomes for children who offend [42,43]. Constructive Resettlement shows how the CF evidence base can change strategies for practice and demonstrates specific application of CF to serious offences (as serious offences are more likely to result in custody). Considering how CF applies holistically across all youth justice processes is essential as a truly overarching approach should apply to all stages of the process for the full spectrum of offence types.

Focusing in on children who commit serious offences, Welfare and Hollin [44] studied the childhood trauma and offence-related trauma of children in custody in England and Wales for such crimes as murder and acts of serious violence. They found that many of the children had experienced severe childhood trauma and were still experiencing trauma related to their offences. Early-life trauma can have long-term consequences, including altered neural pathways predisposing them towards behavioural and emotional difficulties [45]. This shows that children who commit serious offences often have complex histories of trauma that can have an impact at a biological level.

4. Balancing the Rights of Children with the Rights of Society

When CF and children’s rights enter the discourse, opposers argue that public safety must be paramount. This risk-based argument erroneously sees CF and public safety as mutually exclusive. However, setting CF in opposition to public safety is a misunderstanding as CF, in emphasising engaging with children within positive relationships between practitioners and the child, leads to positive outcomes such as pro-social identity development for children and a consequential reduction in offending (and therefore victims) [3].

Article 11.2 of the Human Rights Act 1998 [46] specifies that restrictions should only be placed on an individual’s rights when necessary due to “national security or public safety”. Multiple studies have considered the over-policing of ethnic minority children, including their over-representation in the youth justice system, noting that officers are more likely to stop and search children from ethnic minorities than those who are white, alongside ethnic disparities in sentencing [47,48,49]. Over-policing is criminogenic as it labels children as likely offenders, which stigmatises them during formative years of identity development [50]. Children, due to emotional and cognitive immaturity, along with a lack of life experience, are highly vulnerable to labelling and stigmatisation [51].

While police policies seem to be changing towards accepting CF [52,53], studies show that “child-friendly policing” is not being realised in practice. Kemp and colleagues [54] examined how children in custody were treated and the impact of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) [55] protections on their treatment and questioning. Multiple factors contributed to the need for PACE, including miscarriages of justice involving child suspects. It regulates police powers and aims to protect the rights of the public. Kemp et al. [54] found that, on average, children were held in custody for 11 h and 36 min, with 54% being detained overnight and 80% requesting legal advice. Considering that this study was conducted nearly 40 years after the introduction of PACE, its safeguards do not appear to have been fully realised. Kemp and colleagues [54] concluded that CF should be introduced into police custody alongside a complete revision of PACE.

The police have the role of ensuring public safety; however, growing concerns have emerged regarding actions by the police that are contrary to this [56,57]. Both risk approaches and policing argue for public safety; however, they do not appear to act in congruence with this goal. If CF, which aligns more clearly with children’s rights, and as such, sees custody as a last resort [58], reduces reoffending [3], there should be no barriers to its use within every agency of youth justice, including police and custodial institutions. The success demonstrated by Constructive Resettlement indicates that CF should be able to apply to serious crime without compromising public safety through its greater propensity to reduce the likelihood of further reoffending.

However, in terms of the application of CF to practice, youth justice practitioners are at the forefront, offering a unique perspective due to their need to constantly adapt to the ever-changing legislation and policy directives within the system. There is currently little research focused on this important stakeholder group and their experiences of realising CF with justice-involved children, with Day [14] representing one of the few. There is therefore currently a gap in the literature concerning the treatment of children offending more seriously, with such research able to inform interventions for these children, considering their complex needs [44,45]. This study seeks to begin to address this gap by exploring this question with youth justice practitioners, the methodology of which will now be discussed.

5. Child First for Serious Offending—The Current Study

5.1. Methodology

5.1.1. Design

This exploratory small-scale study, investigating the opinions of youth justice professionals about the applicability of CF for children who commit serious offences, was conducted with four YOTs in Wales using semi-structured interviews, which were chosen as an effective means to enquire about participants’ subjective experiences [59], involving pre-set questions with sufficient flexibility for follow-up questions to participant responses [60], because this would facilitate both the researcher’s enquiry and communication of respondents’ unique experiences. The questions referenced the “YOT Gravity Score”, which is the Youth Justice Board’s offence seriousness grading system (scored 1–8, where 8 is the most serious), but notably, it is different (with greater gradation) to the gravity score used by police [37]. This project took the position that offences scoring 5 or above on the YOT gravity score could be considered “serious” because research has identified those offences (as measured between 2006 to 2012) as likely to result in a custodial sentence at least 25% of the time. These include such offences as the burglary of a dwelling, indecent assault, supplying class A drugs, robbery, and arson [37]. Interview questions included those intended to identify the interviewees’ knowledge about CF (“What is your understanding of the Child First approach?”), their opinions on how much the YOT applies CF tenets (“Do you feel that your youth justice service works in a child first way?”), their opinions on the applicability of CF to children committing less serious offences (“How do you feel the child first approach applies to lower-level offences, maybe a YOT gravity score of lower than 5?”) and more serious offences (“How do you feel the child first approach applies to higher level offences, maybe those of a YOT gravity score of higher than 5?”), and any thoughts they might have on viable alternative approaches for children offending more seriously4 (“Are there any other approaches you feel be better suited towards more serious crime?”).

5.1.2. Sample

This study was publicised to all four YOTs within the study area (which was one of four police force areas in Wales, characterised by rurality), and five participants actually consented to take part. Three participants were from one YOT, and the other two were from two different YOTs. One YOT did not consent to participate, so three out of four YOTs in the study area were represented, giving a reasonable spread across the whole study area. One participant was a team manager, and the other four held a case-load of children with whom they worked directly.

5.1.3. Data Analysis

Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s [61] six stages of thematic analysis, where codes and themes are identified through a process of familiarisation with the data, generation of initial codes and themes, reviewing the themes, and defining/naming them, thus allowing for patterns within the dataset to emerge. In addition to the foundational questions around whether CF is applicable for children offending more seriously, this process eventually led to the identification of three main themes, each with three subthemes which delved into associated factors (detailed in

Table 2. Themes and subthemes arising from thematic analysis of the data.

Themes	Subthemes
The child’s agency and perception of self	- The effect of trauma and adverse life experiences; - Perception of self; - Desire and motivation to change behaviour.
Structural issues	- The exclusion dilemma: the discipline and access to education balance; - Consistency is key.
Influential relationships and the public	- The influence of pro-criminal or pro-social associations; - Parental responsibility; - Public perception and protection.

). One limitation of this study is its small sample size, situated in a rural region of Wales, but the in-depth nature of the interviews and analysis methods allowed for rich data to be gained, adding valuable insights. This is, therefore, a small exploratory study that provides a basis for further research with larger sample sizes in a wider range of YOTs in both rural and urban areas in both England and Wales.

5.1.4. Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval was sought and gained through Aberystwyth University’s Research Ethics Panel. All participants consented through a combined participant information sheet and consent form, with data anonymised at the earliest point to ensure confidentiality (in this discussion, the five respondents were assigned codes—R1 to R5). Consent could have been withdrawn at any time during the data gathering period (Summer 2024), and only anonymised data were kept after the study.

5.2. Results and Discussion

In this section, the overarching question of whether CF should be applied to children who offend more seriously will be discussed first, followed by exploration of the themes/subthemes which arose around factors influencing how successfully practitioners thought CF could be applied to serious offending in practice, and the challenges this presents (summarised in Table 2). Each theme (and subtheme) is presented through an explanation of each, supported by quotations, then linked to the relevant literature and CF. Three main themes emerged along with subthemes.

5.2.1. Professional Opinions of Applying Child First to Serious Crimes

It is important to note that although the youth justice professionals identified challenges to applying CF to serious crimes in practice (discussed later), all respondents agreed that it should apply to all crimes regardless of the YOT gravity score (the question having identified a gravity score of five or above as “serious offending”). This is illustrated by other responses to whether CF is applicable to higher level offences:

Yeah, yeah, they’re just children at the end of the day, aren’t they. They’re all children. They don’t know what the gravity scores are.

(R1)

Well, I think it applies from gravity score matrix 1 basically, all the way up. You don’t treat a child differently because of the matrix level.

(R3)

Child First approach … seeing them as a child first even if the offence is more serious … but understanding what’s been going on for that young person, allowing them to be heard, allowing them to be seen … that doesn’t change for out-of-court so lower than, 5 or low, and it doesn’t change … for above.

(R5)

These quotes demonstrate that practitioners thought that CF should equally apply to children offending more seriously (than lesser offending). Similarly, none of the practitioners felt that any other approach including the previous RFPP) was better particularly when considering children committing serious crimes (“No I don’t think so, I think it’s very important to work with a child as a child”, R3).

5.2.2. Challenges of Applying CF to Children Offending Seriously

When considering the practicalities of applying CF to children who offend more seriously, three themes emerged, each with three subthemes, as summarised above in Table 2.

The above themes and subthemes which emerged from the semi-structured interviews with practitioners will now be explored in more detail.

The Child’s Agency and Perception of Self

One of the overarching themes was that the applicability of CF is sometimes dependent on the child having agency to choose to change their behaviour and participate. There were links between engagement and the child’s view of themselves, with engagement suffering if they viewed themselves negatively. Practitioners felt that children having a more positive self-image seemed to foster better engagement in youth justice processes. One factor influencing this was labelling, either by other people or agencies, contributing towards a negative self-image and damaging hopes for the future. This theme had three subthemes: the effects of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACE); perception of self; and desire and motivation to change behaviour.

The Effects of Trauma and ACEs

Respondents stated that trauma and ACEs seemed to impact CF’s applicability to more serious crimes in practice, reiterating on multiple occasions that they are common amongst those who offend, and that children committing more serious crimes often have the most complex pathologies.

I mean … over 99% of them have been affected by abuse, trauma, poverty … so many negative things in their background …you realise that… the offending is linked to … the things that they do have in their childhood.

(R1)

The difficulty is that when you look at that [higher] gravity level, the complexities of that young person…are such that they don’t seem to have those same opportunities and it becomes quite difficult then.

(R4)

The effects of trauma and ACEs can make it difficult for youth justice professionals to work directly with children related to the offence due to the risk of re-traumatisation, compounded for children offending more seriously by their greater likelihood of significant existing traumatisation [41]. Additionally, distrust of professionals due past experiences, combined with a history of trauma, can create resistance on the part of the child in engaging with youth justice practitioners, exacerbated in children offending more seriously (and receiving a custodial sentence) [62].

Difficulties also concern process and the current need for practitioners to talk with children about their offences for assessment purposes (see the earlier brief discussion on the issues with AssetPlus), which, in Child First justice, creates incongruence with some of the underlying principles (tenets 1 and 2; see Table 1) and the need for all work to be strengths-based and future-focused. Given that offences have often been committed many months ago (even years, given the current court crisis [63]), drawing children back to past offending can be damaging and traumatising, as expressed by one respondent:

I have a big problem with, with, um, re-traumatising them, because you can see that you’re re-traumatising them just by talking about the offending, but obviously you have to, you have to do that to do the assessment.

(R1)

Serious offending often precipitates reductions in community opportunities, making the tenets of CF more difficult to achieve (especially when considering the need for fresh “AIR” [12]).

We’ve recently had a young person who … was in court and had been imposed on the sex offender registration, which as a young person of 17 … is just going to make life so difficult for that young person … so it’s hard to then work with that young person and try and say “what do you want for your future,” because they are going to be restricted.

(R4)

“Seeing children as children” (tenet 1; see Table 1) involves maintaining a holistic picture of the child, including their history, understanding how trauma and ACEs have influenced their offending behaviour as this can help ensure that interventions are trauma-informed and sensitive. Additionally, “building pro-social identity” (tenet 2; see Table 1) is based on the child’s own self-narrative, which a history of trauma can distort. Therefore, practice that understands how trauma may influence identity is vital for fostering a positive self-narrative and facilitating desistance. The reference to re-traumatisation through the assessment suggests that the assessment process is not yet CF, indicating a disconnect between assessments and CF. However, a CF approach to assessment would avoid such re-traumatisation and allow for positive identify development (tenet 2, see Table 1).

Perception of Self

Respondents discussed children’s self-perception and how this impacts the effectiveness of CF, stating that shame can hinder children in addressing their difficulties. Negative labelling and associated stigma can cause a negative self-image and have an impact on the child’s engagement with the youth justice process. Negative labels are associated with having a criminal record, being in custody, or being on the sex offender register, and is more likely for those offending more seriously.

They’ve obviously lashed out, or done something due to past trauma … but then there is a sense of shame or embarrassment about their behaviour and then they find it more difficult to address.

(R1)

Often the question … is will this stay on our record, and sometimes it does depending on the offence and the sentence, but actually it’s about… helping them to understand that it’s not … the be all and end all … but often they can see it like that.

(R5)

Alongside this, one respondent felt there was a self-adultification on the part of some children; thus, where CF aims to treat them as children, this is not shared by children who want to be treated as adults, especially those approaching 18 years of age.

A lot of the young people I work with are 17 approaching 18, so … that can be quite challenging because they do like to think of themselves as being an adult.

(R4)

The negative labelling that comes through either their self-perception as an “offender” or processes like the sex offender register (or criminal records) may be a barrier to pro-social identity development, which is key to CF [40]. The applicability of CF in practice when it comes to creating a pro-social identity, perhaps especially when considering sexual offences, may therefore be accompanied by other challenges.

The Desire and Motivation to Change Behaviour

Respondents expressed that CF effectiveness is also dependent on whether the child wants to change their behaviour, without which barriers to engagement and collaboration emerge. Lack of engagement with the YOT for more serious crimes, due to participation being mandatory rather than voluntary, can result in further criminal convictions or punishment, in direct opposition to “diversion” (tenet 4; see Table 1). There is also misalignment with “collaboration” (tenet 3; see Table 1) when it comes to serious offending; CF collaboration (having a voice in what happens within youth justice processes; [34]) works on the basis that the child wants to work with the YOT, whereas with mandatory court orders, the element of compulsion can hinder the collaborative process.

I would say that’s a big factor in our approach … it has to be something that the child wants to get out of this as well, rather than them having a sort of requirement of a court order … it’s got to be a two way street really … they’ve got to see that they’re getting something out of this as well.

(R2)

His … key case worker…showed him the intervention plan and he’s written across … NO in big letters and in the bit where it says young person’s signature, he has just written f*** you …we’ve got his second chance at a panel meeting for his Referral Order on Friday and if he … doesn’t engage with that we are going to have to take it back to court.

(R1)

This offers interesting insight into the importance of the child feeling a benefit from interventions with youth justice professionals—on which CF is predicated—in seeing the child as having their own unique set of needs that should be addressed holistically. The last quote also emphasised that a lack of collaboration in intervention planning (the child clearly did not want to do what was on the plan) disincentivises engagement [34]. This theme also aligns with the previously discussed Constructive Resettlement, which offers a strengths-based model for children post-custody. This links to pro-social identity development and the importance of encouraging a positive self-narrative focused on the child’s potential and capacities for a positive, pro-social future. This is directly related to the aims of CF, especially the tenets concerning building a pro-social identity and diverting from stigma (tenets 2 and 4; see Table 1). Creating a positive self-narrative helps children to manage any stigma they face due to their offence and YOT involvement. It should be acknowledged that some children do not wish to become part of the process through collaboration, as found by Charles et al. [64], which could be exacerbated in children who have offended more seriously because of their greater likelihood of having experienced significant trauma [44], but this should not prevent them from being offered the opportunity for meaningful CF collaboration.

Structural Issues

The second overarching theme that emerged from the data centred around the approaches of different services, i.e., those other than the YOT, and the variable outcomes which ensue, including consistency between and within services. The ethos and processes of Children’s Social Services, for example, were seen by practitioners to both help and hinder CF, including factors such as waiting lists, team structures, and differing general approaches to that of the YOT. This aligns with previous research, such as Morris [16], who highlighted that different services’ conflicting ethe and approaches can affect the youth justice process. This study shows that a decade later, this is still a problem; a disconnect between the approaches—and therefore the outcomes—of different services can lead to distrust on the part of the child towards professionals and hinder the building of trusting professional relationships. This is not necessarily the fault of individual workers but a deeper structural issue. The experiences a child has had with professionals in other services can affect their view of all professionals, exacerbated when some agencies treat children who offend seriously with more distrust and harsher treatment than others; for example, schools can be very risk-averse, leading to punitive treatment of children even if their offending behaviour does not manifest in the school environment [65]. Negative experiences can create generalised distrust of professionals, making it difficult for youth justice professionals to develop a trusting relationship vital for intervention success.

Within this main theme on variability, there were three subthemes relating to exclusion from school, the barriers of custody, and the importance of consistency, to which our focus now turns.

The Exclusion Dilemma: The Discipline and Access to Education Balance

All respondents emphasised education as important for diversion and fostering positive goals for the child’s future (tenets 4 and 2; see Table 1). For example, one respondent emphasised that pro-social identity to them means “diverting them from that towards something that is more positive, whether that’s college, education, supporting them back into school.”(R5). Respondents emphasised that schools may understand the causes of the child’s behaviour and be compelled to exclude them. Exclusion has consistently been shown to lead to pro-criminal associations with individuals who have also been excluded, a lack of education access, and the well-established “school to prison pipeline” [66,67,68]. This emphasises the importance of steering schools away from exclusion due to the protective effect of school against offending behaviour, despite exclusion being a key part of most schools’ discipline policy.

I think a lot of young people that I work with…aren’t in education … so they haven’t got … that pro-social identity. They aren’t part of … that educational system that supports them really…we do work as a service work with education quite closely, recognising that, actually, it’s really important … I do find that it can be a struggle to be Child First in that way because sometimes they are excluded because of their behaviour.

(R4)

I mean from a school point of view, even if you understand that a child has had a traumatised background and that’s why they’re behaving like they are, they still can’t behave like that in school. They … have to be out of school, and … we’ve just got … so many kids being kicked out of school at the moment.

(R1)

This aligns with findings from the Beyond Youth Custody project [13], focused on children offending seriously enough to receive a custodial sentence, which highlighted the relationship between education, desistance, resistance, and positive outcomes for the child. This subtheme echoes previous research findings that education is critical in desistance and related to developing positive goals for the future. It also highlights the difficulties that can occur when schools respond to challenging behaviour with exclusions, especially since those who have experienced significant trauma are more likely to offend more seriously and to be excluded [65]. The education sector has not adopted CF (currently limited specifically to youth justice processes), so this demonstrates the potential benefits of all agencies working with children operating through CF.

Barriers Associated with Custody

Respondents felt that custodial institutions can be a barrier to applying CF in practice. They stated that courts tend to respond to escalating and repeat offending with more onerous outcomes involving custody, but that this should still all reflect CF principles, including interventions whilst in custody. The youth justice professionals recognised the need for custody in some situations for both the safety of the child and others, but they “…would never advocate in a court report for a sentencing children to go to custody” (R1). The respondents felt that it was just as important to use CF in custody; however, custodial establishments can make this difficult. This is because the CF approach is centred around the needs of the child, whereas in custody, children’s needs often seem secondary to the demands of the regime, leading to reversion to more risk-based processes.

I suppose with the more serious offence … the court have the final say on sentencing and if you’ve got a child that’s escalating in their offending behaviour … ultimately the court … are going to give them more onerous outcomes, Detention and Training Orders5, you know, kind of, custody … as a potential option. That still shouldn’t change that … child first approach.

(R2)

One young person is in custody at the moment. It’s very difficult for me to be Child First with him because he’s contained … his wishes and thoughts are very secondary to the fact that he’s been detained because of what he’s done.

(R4)

CF in custody comes with its own challenges; however, as Byrne [69] points out, this should still be the overriding approach (especially?) when children are in custody. Collaboration may be more difficult when the child feels their wishes and thoughts are secondary to the fact that they are in a secure environment. Pro-social identity could also be impacted by the fact that custody is a secure setting of multiple children who possibly have a pro-criminal identity, exacerbated by the label of being a prisoner; this could make it difficult for youth justice professionals to encourage a pro-social identity when they are around others who have also offended. Just being in custody could act in direct opposition to the tenet of diverting from stigma (tenet 4; see Table 1). Since children who offend more seriously are more likely to receive custodial sentences, the current difficulties with realising CF in custody (which, so far, have received little research attention) make it less likely that children committing more serious offences will receive a CF response. This, despite the evidence from the Beyond Youth Custody project which indicated this response to be the best and most effective (in terms of recidivism), and with which the participants all concurred.

Consistency Is Key

When considering the approaches of different services, respondents identified the need for consistency, especially where the child may not have experienced this in the past from wider services, which is a factor emphasised repeatedly by the YJB in their case management guidance [70]. The structure of services can damage the consistency of the approach, which, in turn, could negatively affect children’s perceptions of working with professionals. Alongside this, waiting lists and understaffing can put children at risk of harm, potentially hindering their willingness to engage as consistency is key to forming trusting professional relationships with children.

Yeah we get that a lot of feedback is the team are consistent, and again it’s not to necessarily be critical of social workers but, you know, often we do see that, that these children, these young people are open to us and wider children’s services and because of the teams in terms of ages, you know so they’ll change age, they’ll change social worker and that is just the structure of children’s services.

(R5)

A lot of the youths that we work with come into service, I would say, because they haven’t had a consistent approach … whether that be parents, friends, school, social services.

(R2)

I would like to say it’s quite evidence-based that over time, kind of through a consistent approach … we manage to … break down those barriers and … we do build up a trusting relationship.

(R2)

This shows that the YOT may provide children with consistency that they have not had in the past, which is positive because consistency helps foster successful professional relationships [70]. If consistency is fundamental for all who work with justice-involved children, how much more important must it be for those working with the most traumatised in the youth justice system, often those offending seriously [44]? Although consistency is not in itself part of any one CF tenet, it runs through the whole approach as its full-scale adoption combine to create consistency; however, this is seriously compromised with uneven adoption, as the difficulties of CF in custody demonstrate. The inconsistency that the child may have experienced in the past could damage the development of future professional relationships, which then take more time to build. This demonstrates that while it can be a challenge (especially given the range of services involved), over time, consistency is vital.

Influential Relationships and the Public

The third main theme that emerged from the interviews was that the applicability of CF is affected by both the relationships the child has and public perception towards children who commit serious offences. Respondents expressed that the children’s relationships have a variable impact, either hindering or improving CF in practice. This theme highlights the importance of the child’s social circle, such that the individuals, pro-criminal or pro-social, have an impact on the child’s engagement with the youth justice process and therefore the effectiveness of CF. Much of the work conducted by the youth justice professionals could potentially be reversed by individuals with whom the child spends more time, especially if they directly encourage a pro-criminal rather than a pro-social identity. This theme indicated the importance of the parent or carer’s responsibility to prioritise youth justice processes to avoid adultification and further criminalisation for factors over which the child has little control. Public perception of serious offences also has an impact on this process, especially in developing a pro-social identity (tenet 2; see Table 1) and the process of reintegration into society post-custody. The emerging subthemes were the influence of different relationships, the responsibilities of parents, and the effect of public opinion.

The Influence of Pro-Criminal or Pro-Social Associations

CF relies on building a pro-social identity, collaboration, and diverting stigma (tenets 2, 3, and 4; see Table 1), the success of which can be affected by the people with whom the child associates. The respondents stressed the importance of encouraging children to have pro-social peer relationships, which would be of assistance in developing and maintaining a pro-social identity.

Sometimes that is all it takes … or even if they get a girlfriend who is more pro-social than they are, they kind of drop their ties, so that’s … nothing to do with us but … you encourage them to have good relationships.

(R1)

In addition, CF collaboration looks to extend beyond the child to parents and carers (tenet 3; see Table 1), creating a wider environment conducive to pro-social identity development. Where family members are pro-criminal, the professional cannot encourage disassociation but instead needs to help the family holistically to develop a pro-social family identity in a non-judgmental context. As mentioned earlier, when considering the use of custody for more serious offending, respondents explained that this can encourage pro-criminal associations simply through the child constantly being with other individuals who have offended.

All of the young people that he’s socialising with … we’re making him socialise with other young people who have a criminal identity … from talking to him recently, there is that sort of hierarchy of offences within custody … it’s difficult to support him to have that non-criminal identity and to focus on his future.

(R4)

This extract shows the importance of encouraging pro-social relationships which contribute to a positive, future-focused identity (tenet 2; see Table 1), rather than anti-social relationships that may lead to further offending behaviour, but the system (especially the use of custody) poses challenges to actually achieving this.

Parental Responsibility

Another subtheme that emerged was the responsibility that parents have to monitor where their children are and with whom they spend their time through encouraging pro-social friendships (“Make sure that their parents aren’t just letting them out at night to do whatever they like”, R1). Parents also have a responsibility to prioritise court orders and assist the child in navigating youth justice processes. Children can be criminalised for missing mandatory appointments and court dates (with the latest figures still showing custodial sentencing being used for breach of statutory orders [36]); however, children are often reliant on adults to facilitate their attendance. Without this support, they can be responsibilised and criminalised for something over which they have little control.

I’m thinking of one particular young person who hasn’t got a lot of support from family and parents, you know has missed court appearances because parents haven’t taken them … they’re criminalised for not attending court, warrants being issued and picked up by the police, but actually as a child that young person wasn’t able to get to court on their own. But it’s not the parents that have had a warrant out or are waiting half a day in the police cells waiting to be produced for court.

(R4)

This shows that CF collaboration is not solely between the youth justice professionals and the child but includes parents and carers throughout in order to help encourage a supportive and facilitating environment, which acknowledges structural and developmental boundaries to children’s agency. If parents and carers do not appreciate that their child is developmentally immature (tenet 1; see Table 1), they risk over-responsibilising them.

Public Perception

Respondents also recognised stigma from public opinion on children who commit offences, especially more serious crimes. The community in which the child lives, or reintegrates into, can help the child create a positive sense of self and identity, or alternatively, it could ostracise and socially exclude them. Offence-related stigma can occur in general terms around the child being involved in any criminal activity, but as identified by the respondents, some specific and more serious offences (like sexual offending) are particularly stigmatised. Although records of children added to the sex offender register are not made public, small communities often find out through community gossip.

In my role I tend to do a lot with children who have … displayed sexually harmful behaviour and … that can be a really difficult area within the public eye … because … it does come with a lot of stigma.

(R2)

The need to still treat the children as children (tenet 1; see Table 1) was particularly emphasised by practitioners for children who have committed serious crimes because they are the very children for whom this is less likely to be maintained.

It’s about remembering all the different facets involved because at the end of the day we are working with children who have committed some very serious offences, so we have to bear in mind the public protection but we also have to bear in mind that they are children at the end of the day.

(R3)

It’s more of, like, public perception of the serious offenders isn’t it. Like, in the case of the boys who murdered James Bulger, like years and years ago, they were treated as adults and tried in an adult court … ten years old and they eventually went through the court of human rights and … the court of human rights said that they never should have been treated like that, … they were still vulnerable children.

(R1)

This theme highlights the importance of the child’s social circle because individuals, whether pro-criminal or pro-social, have an impact on engagement with youth justice processes and therefore on the potential positive influence of CF. This indicates that further consideration is needed of the parent or carer’s responsibility to prioritise the order, and in general, to assist the youth justice process to avoid adultification and further criminalisation for factors over which the child has little control. This can be difficult if the parent/carer is a source of trauma, with their own traumatic history making it difficult for them to prioritise their child’s needs. Additionally, the public’s negative perception of children who commit serious offences also affects the process, especially with respect to being able to see children as children, but also in building a pro-social identity and reintegrating back into society post-custody. This potentially also highlights the importance of anonymity when it comes to children committing serious crimes to minimise stigmatisation or even to avoid vigilante action [34].

These challenges to realising CF with children who offend more seriously therefore cover a range of different issues. Some threaten children’s engagement with youth justice processes, like the presence of trauma, negative previous experience of professionals, reduced opportunities in the community, and the statutory nature of criminal justice responses to more serious crimes (e.g., compulsory community orders or immediate custody). Some threaten the child’s sense of self and therefore their ability to engage with work to build a pro-social identity, like being treated harshly in some aspects of life (e.g., education), their continued association with anti-social peers, their sense of shame relating to the offence, and the stigma emphasised within community attitudes. Some system issues seem to militate against the wholesale adoption of CF, for example, when assessment processes will not let a child move on from past behaviour, or custodial institutions do not apply the tenets to their environment. This all leads to in consistency and difficulties for youth justice practitioners in building vital collaborative relationships with the children with whom they work. However, the practitioners involved in this research were able to see ways around some of these issues, which will now be discussed.

5.2.3. Overcoming the Challenges

When considering these difficulties, each practitioner respondent suggested potential ways in which they could be addressed in order to ensure that children committing more serious crimes receive a CF response similar to children offending less seriously.

Respondent 1 emphasised the role of encouraging positive social ties with children and the potentially negative impact of anti-social peers, as well as the involvement of parents or carers in promoting these issues.

You encourage them to have good relationships and so I would tell their parents “don’t let them hang around with him if you can help it”.

(R1)

Respondent 2 explained the importance of discussing problematic public attitudes with the child. They emphasised the importance of being open and honest in relation to potential stigma but working with children to find coping strategies, thus minimising negative impact on self-identity. This gives them tools for the future, encouraged through CF pro-social identity development and diversion from stigma.

For me it’s about working with a child … there’s going to be a degree of prejudice one way or another and it’s about working with individuals and making sure they’re aware of that and ways of combating that and addressing it.

(R2)

Respondent 3 acknowledged that risk of harm cannot be ignored but that the focus should be on positive, strengths-based work with the child in order to ensure that their treatment is child-appropriate and builds a positive self-identity and hopes for the future (CF tenets 1 and 2; see Table 1).

I see that child as a child, as an individual but at the same time I’m very aware of …those risk issues, making sure that you’re not … masking over them … but at the same time encouraging and motivating that child, to support them to understand that we are, at the end of the day, working with them, support them to have … a more positive life experience for the future.

(R3)

Respondent 4 emphasised the importance of brokering for children when it comes to education, especially if they have been excluded due to their behaviour, as well as education’s tendency towards zero tolerance.

I’ve got quite a few young people who … have been excluded and we’ve worked quite closely to try and … broker for that young person and their family for that school to try and see if there’s any way them back into access some sort of education.

(R4)

Respondent 5 stated the importance of open and honest communication with the child to aid with difficulties related to past experience with professionals and the impact of ACEs and trauma:

I think a fair significance have a number of ACEs and so that can impact them trusting professionals … so in terms of collaborating with them, … I think yeah it’s just that kind of open work, hearing, listening, ensuring that, you know, if things are agreed that they’re continued on. I think often we see “so and so in my past agreed to this and I didn’t get it or they changed” so I think it’s about being open and honest with them.

(R5)

Although respondents were able to identify multiple challenges faced in employing CF with children who have committed serious crimes in practice, they were also able to see a way forward that could perhaps reduce their impact.

6. Conclusions

The opinions of youth justice professionals provide insight into the practical applicability of CF to cases of serious crime, which is a current gap in the literature. The findings from this small-scale study show that CF can and should be used with children who offend more seriously; however, some factors impact its practical application. These factors centre around the child themselves, their relationships, other services, system limitations, and the public. The public is possibly the biggest barrier because systems can align more with CF over time, the child can be equipped with the tools necessary to develop a pro-social identity, and they can be diverted from self-stigma, but the public, and more specifically the community of which the child is a part, can either foster this personal growth or hinder and even reverse it. If children feel excluded from their community, they may distance themselves from community protective factors such as education and positive activities. This results in a two-tier system whereby CF may be more easily applied to lower-level offences but fail to be applied to more serious offences because of these barriers.

Youth justice professionals provided recommendations for combating some of these barriers, including brokering for children in education, balancing risk concerns with strengths-based and positive future-focused work, involving children in conversations about potential stigma and providing them with tools with which to deal with it, encouraging positive social ties, and engaging in open and honest communication to combat distrust rooted in trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and past negative experiences with professionals. Although these recommendations combat some of the factors that make applying CF to serious crimes more difficult, these barriers persist and warrant further exploration.

Although this study was limited by its small sample size of five participants located in a rural part of Wales, the emerging findings indicate that further study involving a larger sample from both rural and urban areas of England and Wales would be a worthwhile step in the process of creating a much more cohesive youth justice system that is consistently predicated on CF. This study has identified a disconnection between the approaches and ethe of different services within and without youth justice, damaging the development of a coherent CF system. The current inconsistencies are damaging as children’s past experiences with professionals affect the ability of youth justice professionals to create the necessary trusting professional relationships with children, and there is a risk of potentially creating a two-tier system with CF for low-level offending but a much harsher response to children who offend more seriously.

The consensus amongst the professionals was that CF is appropriate for all justice-involved children, highlighting that although there are challenges, these can be overcome. The professionals agreed that whatever the seriousness of the offence committed by a child, they are still a child and should be treated as such. This consolidates the idea that an approach which sees the child as a child should be applied to all children—“they’re just children at the end of the day”.