In the latest episode of the AYJ’s podcast series, we spotlight on the ground-breaking new report ‘The Life of a Top Boy’, which centres the perspectives of young Black men about trauma and violence in the community.

This second report from the Young Advocates Project presents findings from engagement with 90 children and young people across England and Wales, and focuses on the three priority topics of criminalisation, policing, and intervention and diversion. The aim was to explore the routes into the justice system for young people, as compared to pathways out and away from it.

For the first in the AYJ’s podcast series focused around our policy priority of 'Reframing Violence', we speak with Luke Billingham and Adam Elliott to explore how society perceives children involved in serious violence, how and why this perception is shaped, and whether this perception is accurate.

After the success of their first youth-led report, the Young Advocates have been travelling to different areas of England and Wales to schools and secure facilities to conduct a new round of their own first-hand research.

We speak with Agnes Wootton, Re-Frame Service Manager at With You, about the importance of the programme for vulnerable children, and the research behind it.

The AYJ speaks with Charlie Sutton, co-ordinator and social researcher for new research on ‘context sensitive preventative interventions’ within youth justice.

Today, AYJ publishes the first of three policy briefings for our ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Justice’ research project. The briefing presents the significant risk of a surge in the number of children drawn into the youth justice system following the pandemic.

This first report from the Young Advocates Project presents findings from engagement with over 120 young people across England and Wales, and focuses on the three priority topics of stereotypes, education and warning signs, and jail (custody). The aim was to identify patterns that run through society, and the education and justice systems overall, to find out what young people feel increases the chance of entering the justice system.

At the AYJ, six principles for youth justice policy underpin our way of working. We have used these as a framework for our response to the Commission’s call for evidence which focuses on children in, or at risk of involvement in, the justice system. Thank you to all AYJ members who took the time to support our submission.

Commenting on the Government’s ‘Beating Crime Plan’, the AYJ raises concerns that it does not go far enough to tackle the root causes of offending, provide adequate support children and young people, and address the devastating impacts of COVID-19.

This literature review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing policy, practice and research literature about the impacts of COVID-19 on the youth justice system. The review considers the impacts of the pandemic across each stage of the youth justice system, bringing together findings from community-based responses, the courts, and the secure estate.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill, currently at Committee Stage in the House of Commons, introduces a whole host of provisions with a range of impacts across the youth justice system. Our Committee Stage briefing examines the proposals.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Home Office consultation on the Knife Crime Prevention Order (KCPO) guidance. We worked closely with the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) during the parliamentary stages of the Offensive Weapons Bill to assist parliamentarians on scrutiny of the bill’s provisions. Our work helped to secure the consultation on the guidance on KCPOs as well as the piloting of KCPOs, with a report on the pilot to be laid before Parliament prior to the further roll out of the orders.

Violence is the product of multiple, complex and deep-rooted issues within society, it is not inevitable. From our research, it is clear that various government policies over the last decade have exacerbated many of the root causes of children becoming affected by, or involved in, serious violence. In this paper we explain our position and recommendations for the Government response to serious violence.