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Massachusetts and Scotland: From Juvenile Justice to Child Welfare?
Abstract
Comparative data from two systems of dual jurisdiction, the Massachusetts juvenile court and the Scottish children's hearings, is examined to explore the relative use of child welfare and juvenile justice referrals in the lives of children. In Scotland, a radical shift away from juvenile delinquency toward child welfare cases has altered the system's capacity to fulfill a welfare-oriented approach to older adolescents. In Massachusetts, the juvenile court is becoming more welfare-oriented as older adolescents are claimed.
... Additional analysis of the use of permanence orders in Scotland did not account for the higher rates. Operationally, while England, NI and Wales use the Family Law Courts for child protection legal interventions, in Scotland the Children's Hearing System provides a non- adversarial tribunal setting to make decisions about child protection concerns (McGhee and Waterhouse, 2012). NI's integrated health and social care system, and the impact of culture and politics may also contribute to higher rates of kinship care. ...
The practice of extended family and friends helping to care for children when their parents are unable to is an enduring tradition in many cultures. Kinship care provides the largest proportion of out of home care in Western society but many of these carers experience poverty and deprivation, and do not receive comparable levels of support, financial or professional, to other placement types. This study provides UK evidence for the relationship between kinship care and deprivation and examines how the welfare state frames kinship care in policy and practice.
... The CHS, an integral element of both child protection and youth justice systems in Scotland since 1971, was reformed by the Children's Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 which now provides the legal basis for child protection measures in Scotland. The children's hearing is a non-adversarial tribunal involving a lay panel of volunteers which provides an informal setting for parents, children and panel members to make decisions based upon the needs of the child ( McGhee & Waterhouse, 2012). In England, Wales and NI, where there are child protection concerns necessitating some kind of statutory intervention, local authorities make an application to the Family Law Courts for a variety of legal orders. ...
Although numerous international studies point to large variations in child welfare interventions, comparative analysis has tended to focus either solely on England or the UK as a whole, discounting differences across the four UK countries. This paper compares trends in national statistics relating to the operation of child protection systems across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland between 2004/5 and 2013/14. Despite a number of legislative, operational and definitional differences between nations, a number of trends are apparent. All systems show an increasing orientation towards child protection as evidenced by rising rates of child protection investigation and children subject to child protection planning. Increasingly, this relates to emotional abuse and involves younger children aged 0-4 years. However, the way cases are processed can differ with only one in ten referrals resulting in a child protection investigation in Northern Ireland compared to one in five in England. Potential reasons for these differences are discussed and questions raised as to why, more than quarter century after the introduction of the Children Act 1989, we still have no clear picture of the circumstances of families who come into contact with social services or the services provided to support them.
Recent legislative enactments have altered the boundary between US juvenile and criminal justice systems. Youth that were previously adjudicated as juveniles are increasingly being labeled ‘adults’ and tried in the criminal court. This article begins with a review of policy and practice changes in the transfer of children to the criminal court. Through a discussion of relevant social and political discourses, the author examines the meanings of these changes for constructions of childhood and the contestation of childhood that they represent. The article concludes with a framework for analyzing and reconfiguring the trying of children as adults.
How can the study of comparative criminal justice avoid the opposite dangers of ethnocentrism and relativism? The problem is examined taking as an example Cavadino and Dignan's recent analysis of differences in prison rates. The case is made that more attention needs to be given to understanding how different criminal justice systems actually produce prison rates as well as to interpreting the ideas and values that animate those inside and outside the system.
Surprisingly, there has been little or no systematic research to date that has explored the significance of UK devolution for youth justice policy and practice. This article explores the extent of differential justice in the United Kingdom, particularly as it is expressed in the myriad action plans, criminal justice reviews, frameworks for action, delivery plans and offending strategies that have surfaced since 1998. In particular, the article considers how far policy convergence and divergence are reflected through the discourses of risk, welfare, restoration and children’s rights in the four administrations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For comparative criminology, the United Kingdom offers a unique opportunity to explore how international and national pressures towards convergence and/or divergence can be challenged, rebranded, versioned, adapted or resisted at sub-national and local levels.
Urbanization, rising income inequality, and increasing class segregation have produced a geographic concentration of affluence and poverty throughout the world, creating a radical change in the geographic basis of human society. As the density of poverty rises in the environment of the world's poor, so will their exposure to crime, disease, violence, and family disruption. Meanwhile the spatial concentration of affluence will enhance the benefits and privileges of the rich. In the twenty-first century the advantages and disadvantages of one's class position will be compounded and re-inforced through ecological mechanisms made possible by the geographic concentration of affluence and poverty, creating a deeply divided and increasingly violent social world.
This paper examines policy and practice developments in juvenile justice in Europe and the USA. Many jurisdictions have become increasingly concerned with the control of youth crime reflecting a shift in emphasis from welfare to justice approaches. Adult models of justice have come to the fore in the treatment of juveniles in a range of jurisdictions, separating them from children in need of care and protection. Scotland and the State of Massachusetts share a common history of research interests and approaches to dealing with juvenile offenders. The way these jurisdictions have adapted to the demand for public protection in the past decade is explored. It is argued that Scotland has retained a clear welfare focus whilst developments in Massachusetts are more varied. Massachusetts can be seen to offer the appearance of greater public protection by increasing the emphasis on punishment within a system that still deals with the majority of juveniles separately.