ABSTRACT
This chapter is timely to be considering ethical dimensions of the youth justice system in England and Wales. In 2008 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will be examining the UK in respect of its compliance with the Convention, which is the most important international statement of values about how children should be treated. In the period since 2002, policy questions about youth justice have frequently contained an ethical element. The chapter cannot do justice to the range and complexity of these ethical questions but will concentrate on just two which seem central to the response that society makes to young people under the age of 18. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has stated that 'a juvenile justice policy without a set of measures aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency suffers serious shortcomings'. The chapter is particularly concerned with early interventions with children targeted on the basis of their future criminality.
