ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, Brandon Welsh and David Farrington provided a wide ranging review of the best demonstrated, most cost effective ways of preventing offending. It is our intention to provide the reader with more information about one kind of intervention that they highlighted, parenting training programmes. We take a different approach, seeking to provide an analysis of parenting programmes within a specific social context and to give a deeper flavour of people's experiences on those programmes. These two chapters have some similarities in terms of policy implications. We also think it likely that context specific, multi-faceted programmes, set within a better run system of crime prevention, and far improved social policies offer the best hope. Yet, we have concerns about how such polices will be effected and their implications for the individuals targeted. We therefore proffer this analysis of the historical, legal and psychological elements of youth justice and parenting in England and Wales.
