ABSTRACT
This chapter explains an understanding of how youth offender panels operate on the ground. The chapter deals with the professionalisation of community panel members, the limits to genuine community involvement, the representativeness of community panel members, the 'restorativeness' of youth offender panels. With youth offender panels it seems to be different: in a process that supposedly promotes greater community involvement, community members are actually just voicing what young people are made to believe. However, in actuality they are being told what to do; contracts are only remotely about reparation, while referral orders may be discharged without any type of reparation being undertaken. Indeed, the local youth offending team (YOT) is responsible for recruiting and training the community panel members, establishing a youth offender panel for each offender, assessing offenders prior to initial panel meetings, engaging with victims and convening all panel meetings.
