ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider a range of interactions with young people involved or alleged to have been involved in criminal activity. The purpose of this chapter is to present and develop a discussion about how to approach and understand young people in pre-and post-conviction environments. Our approach is not to establish that all young people involved in criminality are routinely engaging in deception, but to enable a heightened level of insight to allow practitioners to distinguish between those individuals who are lying from those who are not. By reviewing the resources and challenges of the young people in question, it will also be possible to understand the skilled nature of this behaviour, even among a group of young people who might be unsuccessful liars having been caught and convicted as a result of evidence gained during a police investigation. Therefore, identifying skilled as well as less skilled deceptions produced by unsuccessful liars can act as a cautionary note to practitioners about the varying levels of challenge presented by such young people. It will be possible to demonstrate how young people feel that deception is appropriate, even in situations where most of us would consider truth to be a better strategy, and to show that this may create challenges for practitioners in this and other settings. This is because it is important for practitioners to understand the young person's perspective and motivation to enable more effective interactions.
