ABSTRACT
Reviewing New Labour's 'scorecard' on youth justice, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies conducted an audit of achievements over the period 1997–2007, which similarly identified expansionary tendencies, but little evidence of tangible achievements. Between 2000/01 and 2006/07, youth justice spending had increased in real terms by 45 per cent. It is perhaps somewhat ironic that the minister responsible for criminal justice under the new government in 2010 was the self-same Kenneth Clarke who had contributed significantly to initiation of the 'punitive turn' in youth justice in the early 1990s. Clarke set the tone by announcing that he found current prison population of 85,000 as an 'astonishing' figure, which would have been 'ridiculous' to predict at time when he had previously held the office of Home Secretary in 1992–3. He began to speak of a 'rehabilitation revolution', and argued forcefully for an end to the competitive bidding war between the leading political parties as to who was toughest on crime.
