ABSTRACT
Ever since the early nineteenth century, when the troubled and troublesome young were first thought to deserve a different formal response to that afforded adults, it has become commonplace to describe youth justice as riddled with complexity, confusion, ambiguity and unintended consequences. The aims of acting in a child’s “best interests”, ensuring offenders get their “just deserts” and protecting children’s rights have always sat uneasily together. This chapter examines the extent to which children’s rights are present in systems of youth justice which are based on welfare principles (as in Scotland) or those based on the principle of “just deserts” (as in England and Wales). By exploring recent legislative reform, particularly in England and Wales, it questions how far the “new youth justice” is any better equipped to prioritise and uphold more than a rhetorical commitment to children’s rights.
