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This paper aims to describe a study examining the enforcement of statutory orders within the youth justice system.

After an initial scoping of policy and statistical data, the study examined how the enforcement system operates when children breach their anti‐social behaviour or criminal justice order. Interviews were conducted with a youth offending team manager, Chair of the Youth Bench and a lead on anti‐social behaviour within each of six localities in England and Wales to establish their views and experiences. Interviews were also conducted with 12 children subject to a statutory order in the community and four children serving a custodial sentence for a breach offence, and their circumstances and offending histories analysed.

The small sample size and gaps in statistical data are a limitation but the findings indicate that inflexible guidance on enforcement based on incidents of non‐compliance rather than the child's attitudes and engagement can constrain practitioners and disadvantage the most vulnerable children without any evidence that it “works” in making communities safer. For many children, failure to comply was a response to their turbulent lives rather than an act of defiance. In an attempt to provide the structure that the children needed, onerous conditions were attached to orders that risked setting them up to fail.

The impact that enforcement policy has on children has not previously been examined and the study raises a fundamental question about whether a tough approach to enforcement is effective in changing behaviour or whether a refocusing towards positive engagement would be more productive.

In the desire to improve outcomes for children in care, the issue of those individuals placed by local authorities in residential establishments run by external agencies has become especially salient. In addition to questions of quality and value for money, there are concerns about children becoming detached from local services, especially as many of the placements selected are outside the local authorities' geographical boundaries. This study looks at 262 children so placed in eight English local authorities. It was found that although there were common presenting problems, such as a need for specialist therapy or to reduce difficult behaviour, the children's circumstances varied and four distinct groups of children with common needs were identified. The use of such placements also varied across the authorities and did not mirror their numbers of children in care. The factors associated with the use of externally purchased residential placements and differences between those placed internally and externally are explored. A framework for developing new approaches for difficult adolescents and suggestions about fruitful service development are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Kaizen, an accredited offending behaviour programme designed for high risk and need offenders within Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), lends itself to responsive delivery with those meeting the criteria for psychopathy.

The paper describes how the theoretical rationale and model of change underpinning Kaizen can be applied to those with high levels of psychopathic traits given the available literature in this area.

It is argued that Kaizen is applicable to those meeting the criteria for psychopathy.

As a contemporary intervention, the efficacy of Kaizen in its ability to support participants in their journey towards desistance and therefore to contribute to the service wide aim of reducing reoffending is yet to be evaluated. In turn, its applicability to those meeting the criteria for psychopathy is yet to be explored.

This paper lends support to the applicability of Mann and Carter’s (2012) six organising principles of programme design in the treatment of high risk, high need offenders who meet the criteria for psychopathy. It encourages practitioners to consider Kaizen as a possible intervention option for this population and offers guidance as to how the programme might be used to best effect. The paper also highlights the importance of evaluating the efficacy of participation in Kaizen for this population.

In time, Kaizen will replace Chromis as the offer by Intervention Services (HMPPS) for high risk offenders with a high level or combination of psychopathic trait. This paper describes this forthcoming change in approach and the rationale underpinning it.

Current government policy aims to tackle youth anti-social behaviour and its psychological and social impacts. Given an increased likelihood that young victims of crime are also likely to engage in aggressive or deviant behaviour and to have psychological and social difficulties, interventions are needed which access vulnerable youth with adverse lifestyles to increase well-being and reduce offending. The current project utilised a hospital emergency department (ED) as an appropriate location to identify and interact with youth victims of violent crime; to support key lifestyle risk and mental health difficulties; and build resilience. The purpose of this paper is to use a youth work paradigm, to target vulnerable youth in a health setting at a crisis point where intervention may have a higher chance of uptake.

The study applied a quasi-experimental, longitudinal design. Using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire and the “What Do You Think” component of the ASSET risk assessment, data were collected from 120 youth aged 12-20, at baseline with 66 youth who successfully completed the programme with assessments at baseline and follow-up, at an average of 14 weeks.

There was significant reduction in both psychological problems and lifestyle risk at follow-up.

These findings support the government initiative to intervene in youth violence in healthcare settings. Challenges revolve around increasing participation and greater formalisation of the intervention.

The youth work led violence intervention in the ED is successfully tackling psychological problems and lifestyle risk following injury.

What does the future hold for crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) over the coming year? A number of initiatives pre‐dating the 2005 election are likely to continue to shape the agenda for crime and disorder reduction partnerships over the coming months. However, announcements since the election are likely both to make the government's agenda underlying these initiatives clearer and speed‐up the pace of change.

The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss state inaction on and NGO responses to the hidden problem of youth disengagement in the form of social withdrawal.

The study is based on data drawn from six focus groups of social workers working with youths experiencing the problem of social withdrawal and another 30 individual interviews with service users having had this vulnerable background.

Substantiated with empirical findings, the paper argues that young people in social withdrawal characterized by their socially avoidant behavior and deprivation of an engagement status as a worker, student or trainee are largely invisible to the state because of the latter's insensitivity to the heterogeneity and diversity of disengaged youth and reproduction of the anti‐social notion of at‐risk youth. A flexible and tailor‐made strategy initiated by an NGO is argued to be more effective in meeting the needs of silently‐disengaged young people.

This paper critically examines state inaction on the problem of youth disengagement in the form of social withdrawal and argues the importance of adopting a flexible and tailor‐made strategy with regard to both outreaching and service provision efforts.

This article considers the experiences of people with learning difficulties as victims of hate crime. It considers how the Crime and Disorder Act and No Secrets can help identify and prevent hate crime, and examines an example of good practice designed to produce an effective response.

This paper argues that this animal surveillance has the potential for considerable function creep going far outside the scheme's original objectives and acts as a conduit for more problematic surveillance of humans. This results in social sorting of people with subsequent unforeseen consequences leading to discrimination and curtailment of freedoms for both animals and their owners. Ultimately this opens people up to further intrusive targeting by commercial interests and, more alarmingly, scrutiny from law enforcement agencies.

An empirical study examining an initiative involving the collection of canine DNA sources data from publicly available Cabinet, Select Committee and Scrutiny Committee records from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD). It also draws on news media sources, publicity material from the company running the scheme and from this and other local authorities. Methods include analysis of documents, semiotic and discourse analysis.

This paper highlights the importance of animals to surveillance studies and examines the extent to which animals are a part of the surveillant assemblage in their own right. It also demonstrates how nonhuman animals extend the reach of the surveillant assemblage.

The scheme was called a badge of considerate dog ownership, yet it is one that can be franchised to tie up with diverse income streams being described as advantageous in the age of austerity. In 2017, it was reported that this scheme was to be rolled out in other areas and was moving from being voluntary to being mandatory with the enforcement of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs). These have been described as “geographically defined ASBOS” that have come into force under the Anti-social Behaviour and Policing Act (2014); they often work to criminalise activities that were not previously considered illegal.

In the theorising of surveillance, animals have been largely overlooked. Epidemiological studies proliferate, yet the role of animals in many aspects of everyday surveillance has been neglected.

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking. The study which sought to identify differences between those who joined street gangs compared to those who abstained on Merseyside.

Two samples were taken from locations within the five boroughs of Merseyside, the first comprising of 22 participants (18–25) involved in street gangs as active and ex-members with a second sample consisting of 22 participants (18–25) who had completely abstained from street gang membership. Data were collected through adoption of biographic narrative interpretive method (BNIM) (Wengraf, 2001), with analysis taking the form of Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) version of grounded theory.

Of the many findings that surrounded what was identified as the core category/central phenomena of “coping with limited opportunity” it emerged that marginalisation and austerity were contributing to increasing inequality and institutional constraint on young people on Merseyside. As a result, many of the 18–25 year young men felt powerless, lacking identity and aspirational drive. Joining a gang thus became not only a way in which control was seized back from such constraint through criminal risk-taking behaviour, what Lyng (1990) has termed “edgework”, but also a means in which many of the young men interviewed gained an identity of being “bad” from which intrinsically pleasurable seductive and criminally erotic sensations were derived (Katz, 1988). Moreover, a relatively new version of edgework was also identified, even though by way of male testimony. Called “vicarious edgework”, the phenomena sees young women drawn to male gang members (“bad boys”) to derive the excitement of risk indirectly while remaining law abiding. In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation.

Study samples were all male. Thus, any observations on the vicarious edgework aspect of risk taking requires further research involving both young men and women.

The paper highlights the need for more understanding of the allure of risk-taking. The paper identifies a new form of female edgework. The paper draws attention to gang membership and non-membership on Merseyside, an area that has been greatly neglected by gangs’ studies in the UK. The paper describes a novel way of data collection using an adoption of BNIM.

In sum, the paper highlights a concerning socio-psychological and key motivating driver triggered by marginalisation. This, the author contends has been largely neglected by risk factor focussed interventions that largely concentrate on the idea of rational choice theory and sociological positivism.

The paper attempts to disseminate original street gang research by Hesketh (2018) that has identified a major aspect of young disenfranchised people’s attraction to street gangs as edgework risk-taking.