ABSTRACT
The interrelationship between education and youth crime has long been recognised. The question posed in The Times in 1867: ‘Which is best, to pay for the policeman or the schoolmaster – the prison or the school?’ (Furlong 1985) has never been satisfactorily answered. Public opinion and social policy has seesawed between these options ever since. Similarly the professional response has often been to adopt polarised positions whereby learning is the prerogative of teachers and the criminal justice remit is confined to offending behaviour. The Youth Justice Board is attempting to devise and implement a new synthesis whereby mainstream education recognises its duty to prevent offending and those working in youth justice understand that virtually all their interventions revolve around the promotion and support of learning. In order to achieve this it will be necessary to blend the evidence base across education and youth justice, modify the design and research methodologies and adopt new skills and knowledge across professional boundaries. This chapter addresses these issues in three sections. First, we examine the relationship between education and offending. Second, we describe the Youth Justice Board’s new education and training strategy intended to deal with the issues raised in the first section of the chapter. Finally, we review our current understanding of what works in relation to the educational interventions which lie at the heart of the YJB strategy.
