ABSTRACT
The system of treatment of children ‘in trouble’ in the U.K. is seriously flawed and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has continuously criticised the performance of the U.K. government in its implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) since its ratification in 1991. Proportionately more children in trouble are locked up in the UK than anywhere else in the European Union. In the last decade, legislation has provided for increasing numbers of children, particularly younger children and girls, to be locked up for less serious offences, contrary to the evidence base about what works with vulnerable children (Warner 2001). A review of the system of justice for children and young people in trouble has been called for repeatedly (most recently see Monaghan et al. 2003), but the barriers to reform are significant, not least the fundamental requirement that it treats children in trouble both as children first, and as children ‘in need’.
