ABSTRACT
The youth justice system is on the verge of a new horizon: a system that is to be driven by electoral commitments on the part of the Labour Party to halve the time that it takes to process cases through the Youth Court and to reduce the burden of legal aid. The new youth justice system created by the Labour government goes considerably further down the road of repressive intervention than that proposed by the Conservatives. The Audit Commission recommended a transfer of resources from the court system into pre-court intervention thereby decriminalising children and diverting them from the formal criminal justice system which is, as the audit demonstrates, inordinately expensive, slow in response and ineffective. The Children and Young Persons Act 1969 was the last piece of legislation placed on the statute book by a Labour government that sought to reform the youth justice system. Justice is obtained through the services of the legal profession.
