Editorial: Children’s participation in youth justice: actions speak louder than words

Smithson, H ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4096-0172, Creaney, S and Parkes, R (2024) Editorial: Children’s participation in youth justice: actions speak louder than words. British Journal of Community Justice, 19 (2). pp. 1-3. ISSN 1475-0279

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Abstract

In theory, children in conflict with the law have the legal right to have their opinions taken into account and are entitled to contribute to a criminal justice system’s response to their own behaviour (see United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), 2007; 2008). Indeed, the UNCRC General Comment No 24 (2019) reflects developments that have occurred since 2007 with effective participation in justice proceedings (art. 40 (2) (b) (iv)) stating that ‘a child who is above the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be considered competent to participate throughout the child justice process.’ Pivotal to this is a commitment to ensure that children are provided with meaningful opportunities to participate in inclusive and collaborative decision-making processes (Creaney and Burns, 2024; Peer Power / YJB, 2021). However, in practice, systemic neglect of children’s views and an inability to view children as capable co-producers pervades contemporary youth justice systems and practices (Smithson and Gray, 2021; Burns and Creaney, 2023). Whilst a ‘participatory rights-compliant’ culture should be central to the ethos of how children are responded to, institutional and structural barriers may inhibit opportunities for them to input into processes or exercise agency. The adage ‘actions speak louder than words’ is used in this special edition to emphasise the point that there needs to be much more of a focus on how children’s participation is translated into policy and practice. For instance, the terms child first, child participation, children’s voice, and co-production are used interchangeably with little thought as to what they mean for youth justice practice ‘on the ground’. The papers in this issue critique models of youth participation and offer insight into how professionals can embrace children’s voices in youth justice and wider services.