Responsibilisation in the youth justice service: repositioning marginalised knowledge

The youth justice system in England and Wales underwent significant reform in 1998, with an approach under New Labour that empathised system efficiency and the importance of offenders taking personal responsibility for their behaviour. Since this time there has been very little research that includes and examines the perspectives of young people who have experienced the youth justice system. Instead, empirical focus has inclined towards qualitative methodologies that are intended to objectively assess the impact and outcomes of various policies but which omit the offender-viewpoint.

This paper outlines a different approach by examining what it means to claim that young offenders have been responsibilised, given that responsibilisation is the explicit aim of youth justice policy in England and Wales. It proposes the development of a research method that centralises the perspectives and viewpoints of young offenders who are ‘the product of processes of responsibilisation’ (Clarke, 2005: 451). This could not only broaden our understanding of ‘what works’ in youth justice, and what does not; but can also provide a human face and living voice to a group whose knowledge and perspectives are often marginalised and silenced.