Criminal responsibility and buying a hamster: getting the age right
CYCJ Director, Claire Lightowler, reflects on the launch of the consultation about the minimum age of criminal responsibility in Scotland. The Scottish Government has today launched a consultation about the minimum age of criminal responsibility. Will Scotland decide eight-year-olds are too young to be criminally responsible for their actions and that this should be increased […]
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Bringing Up Baby – how do innocent babies become young offenders?
CYCJ’s Research Fellow Nina Vaswani reflects on new motherhood and questions how it is that some babies will one day become involved in youth offending. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I’ve been very quiet over the past few months. I’ve been working away on an exciting new project – namely the ‘How to […]
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Spotlight on Roadshows – Core skills with challenging young people
Having written on the subject of the high risk roadshow last month, this month CYCJ’s Stewart Simpson shines the spotlight on the ‘Core skills with challenging young people topic’, in order to share some experience of the roadshows CYCJ delivers across Scotland. Well as promised, here it goes! “Core skills” (and what they are) is […]
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Reflecting on ‘Conviction: violence, culture and a shared public service agenda’ by John Carnochan
CYCJ’s Director, Claire Lightowler, reflects on ‘Conviction: violence, culture and a shared public service agenda’ in the latest Raising Youth Justice blog post, and shares her thoughts on what this book by John Carnochan can teach us about supporting change across youth justice. It’s rare for me to read a book straight through in one sitting, but as soon […]
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The dangers of ignoring practitioner voices in youth justice
Our latest guest blog, written by Dr Stephen Case and Professor Kevin Haines, of Swansea University’s Criminology department, argues that the voices of practitioners are not being heard in the youth justice process – and discusses the implications this could have for the sector and the young people that it serves. Youth Justice practitioners employed […]
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Lessons from Europe: from Spain’s ‘model prison’ to Will Cornick
David Orr discusses the sentencing of Will Cornick for the murder of Ann Maguire against the context of Spain’s progressive approach to youth justice. Controversial – or common sense? Read on to decide: Over the course of the last fortnight I have been affected strongly by two very different stories relating to juvenile justice in Europe. One […]
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When practice makes imperfect
With one foot in CYCJ and the other in social work practice, David Orr reflects on his time spent with the Centre… It’s the phones you notice. You are either on one, waiting for one to ring, waiting for someone to answer one or working out whether you have been screened out by Caller I.D. […]
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Trafficking: why it’s everyone’s business
Charlotte Bozic and Jill McAfee write about why working together and taking a child-centered approach is key to tackling child trafficking, following the ‘Child Trafficking: A Scottish Perspective’ conference. On October 29, the Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice held a conference to raise awareness of trafficked children in Scotland and the practice issues of identification, assessment […]
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The life and times of a PhD student
Fern Gillon, who is working with CYCJ as part of her research into diverting young people from crime, shares what it’s like to embark on a PhD in this funny and honest blog. Where to start? I have every book titled, “how to…PhD/Postgrad study” but week one and two have still been a bit of […]
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