Page 58 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

communicative, instructive, developmental and legally transformative
functions. This child sensitive and child centred approach can be applied by all
criminal justice professionals throughout the criminal justice process.

3.4 JUSTICE’s 2019 report, Understanding Courts, identified that legal processes
are often confusing and distressing for those involved. The report details how
to present information in a way that users of the system, including children,
can more easily digest. Moreover, it identified that courts often do not take
sufficient care to ensure that the people before them understand the process.
We endorse the recommendations in the report, particularly those regarding
court familiarisation visits, the provision of information on the court process
in child appropriate formats, and the adaptation of language for children
appearing in court. 175 In practice, this can also mean ensuring important
information is available in relevant languages. 176 We consider that more
initiatives like this need to be introduced throughout the whole YJS in order to
understand the children within it. By understanding the children and their
context, a clearer assessment of their needs should emerge, which would allow
for more appropriate outcomes.

3.5 In this chapter we highlight where good practice is already developing these
approaches and should be more broadly tested and implemented, in line with
core principles that we consider are necessary to enable fairer processes for
accused children in the YJS: 177

Hollingsworth and Helen Stalford (see especially ‘“This is a case about you and your future”: Towards
Judgments for Children’ (2020) 83(5) Modern Law Review 1030-1058).
175 For example, we note the work of Y-Stop, who have developed a stop and search help card in Somali
for those who have English as a second language. See ‘Search card in Somali’, Y-Stop.
176 For good examples of information being presented in a child-friendly format, see ‘Notice of rights
and entitlements: easy read’; and materials from the Youth Justice Legal Centre.
177 These principles align with Procedural Justice Theory which we consider to be vital in creating a YJS
that works for everyone. The key aspects of PJT are: understanding; voice, respect; and neutrality. While
some of these elements already operate within the CJS, we are not satisfied that they are implemented
fully, or satisfactorily. Taking a PJT informed approach will help decision-makers challenge their own
subconscious biases and ensure that the children before them are seen and heard: Thibaut and Walker in
1975 in Procedural Justice: A psychological analysis, and expanded upon by Tom Tyler in 1990 with
his book Why do people obey the law? which explored people’s perceptions of procedural justice and
how this shapes perceptions of legitimacy. See also E. Lagratta and P. Bowen, To be fair: procedural
fairness in courts, (Criminal Justice Alliance, 2014), p.2.

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