Achieving positive change for children? Reducing the length of child protection proceedings: lessons from England and Wales

Court decisions are required to remove children, compulsorily, from their families, and approve permanent care arrangements which restrict or terminate parents’ rights. The children involved are mostly young, have experienced serious abuse or neglect and may require permanent placement away from their parent(s) for their remaining childhoods. In England and Wales, justice to parents has dominated the rhetoric about these proceedings; this has resulted in lengthy proceedings, long periods of uncertainty for children and reduced placement options. In order to reduce delays, reforms in England and Wales have set a time limit for the completion of care proceedings. The Children and Families Act 2014 limits proceedings to 26 weeks; approximately 60% of care proceedings are now completed within this period. This article will discuss the impact of these reforms on decision-making for children, questioning whether they achieve both good decisions for children and justice for families. It uses the findings of an ESRC-funded study: ‘Establishing outcomes of care proceedings for children before and after care proceedings reform (2015–2018)’

Women, resettlement and desistance

With the numbers of women imprisoned increasing across Western jurisdictions over the last 15 or so years, so too have the numbers of women returning to the community following a period in custody. Despite increasing policy attention in the UK and elsewhere to prisoner resettlement, women’s experiences on release from prison have received limited empirical and policy attention. Drawing upon interviews with women leaving prison in Victoria, Australia, this article discusses the resettlement challenges faced by the women and highlights their similarity to the experiences of women leaving prison in other jurisdictions. Women had mixed (and predominantly negative) experiences and views of accessing services and supports following release, though experiences of parole supervision by community corrections officers were often positive, especially if women felt valued and supported by workers who demonstrated genuine concern. Analysis of factors associated with further offending and with desistance, points to the critical role of flexible, tailored and women-centred post-release support building, and, where possible, upon relationships established with women while they are still in prison

‘Cruel and unusual punishment’: an inter-jurisdictional study of the criminalisation of young people with complex support needs

Although several criminologists and social scientists have drawn attention to the high rates of mental and cognitive disability amongst populations of young people embroiled in youth justice systems, less attention has been paid to the ways in which young people with disability are disproportionately exposed to processes of criminalisation and how the same processes serve to further disable them. In this paper, we aim to make a contribution towards filling this gap by drawing upon qualitative findings from the Comparative Youth Penality Project - an empirical inter-jurisdictional study of youth justice and penality in England and Wales and in four Australian states. We build on, integrate and extend theoretical perspectives from critical disability studies and from critical criminology to examine the presence of, and responses to, socio-economically disadvantaged young people with multiple disabilities (complex support needs) in youth justice systems in our selected jurisdictions. Four key findings emerge from our research pertaining to: (i) the criminalisation of disability and disadvantage; (ii) the management of children and young people with disabilities by youth justice agencies; (iii) the significance of early and holistic responses for children and young people with complex support needs; and (iv) the inadequate nature of community based support

On the spot fines and civic compliance. Volume 2

This project, which was undertaken in collaboration with the Faculty of Law at Monash University, provides a comprehensive insight into the Victorian community’s understanding of and attitudes towards the state’s infringement penalty enforcement system and it’s role in supporting road safety, traffic management, and other areas of social regulation. The aims are to identify factors which can enhance compliance with the underlying laws and the administrative arrangements for enforcing them. These research aims are in line with several of the broad outcomes describing the Government’s longer term aspirations for the community and which are associated with the Victorian Department of Justice’s strategic objectives, namely that ‘the legal rights of all persons are protected through a just, responsive and accessible legal system in which the Victorian community has confidence’ and that ‘offenders in Victoria are treated in a just and humane manner and encouraged to adopt law abiding lifestyle’ (Strategic Directions for Justice in Victoria 2001-2006, Department of Justice, victoria, November 2001). In addition, the research meets the objectives of the Department’s Strategic Research Plan 2001-2005 in relation too the need for collaborative applied research into alternative criminal sanctions and their enforcement.<div><br></div><div>The Report is presented in two volumes. Volume One contains an account of the research and it’s findings. Volume Two contains background material on infringement notice legislation, the PERIN Court, research instruments and questionnaires and a review of the relevant literature.</div><div><br></div><div>Copyright. Monash University (Faculty of Law - Professor Richard G. Fox) and the Department of Justice Victoria (Enforcement Management Division and Crime Prevention Victoria)</div