Juvenile Justice in U.K

We should not be surprised if ‘the penalties are tougher when we have been given the opportunities but don’t take them.’-Prime Minister Tony Blair The UN Convention on the Rights if the Child stipulates that children should be protected from custody whenever possible and when deprived of liberty should be treated with humanity and respect. In Article 37 of the convention it is stated that imprisonment of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time. Juvenile crime and punishments can be different from the types of punishments that are ordered in adult criminal cases. The first court established expressly for juveniles was built in Chicago in 1899 to address the issue of juvenile crime and punishments. Juvenile crime and punishments peaked in 1994. The 1990s saw a swell of public scrutiny over the perceived juvenile crime epidemic. In an effort to crack down on juvenile crime and punishments, many state legislatures have adopted harsher laws regarding juvenile crimes. In 2002, 2.3 million juveniles were arrested for committing crimes. The 1908 Children Act created a separate and distinct system of justice board on the juvenile court; the 1993 Children and Young Persons Act formally required the court to take account of welfare consideration in all cases involving child offenders, And the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act advocated the phasing out of criminal in favour of civil proceedings. England and Wales’ adherence to principles of children’s rights clearly does not clearly preclude the pursuit of policies with exacerbate structural inequalities and punitive institutional regimes.