Welfare, Justice, and Diverse Models of Youth Justice: A Children’s Rights Analysis

What is it about?

While States have a legal obligation to ensure that UN Convention on the Rights of the Child rights are fully vindicated in youth justice systems, States’ responses to offending by children are often dictated by other concerns. The need to ensure accountability and the protection of society, and the need to ensure children are treated as children and with respect for their needs – epitomised by the “welfare/justice debate” – are often seen as contradictory goals, meaning that identifying an overall “model” of youth justice that will also ensure UNCRC-compliance can be difficult. Derived from a comparative study of child rights compliance in the youth justice systems of Scotland, Ireland and New Zealand, this article poses the question whether the UNCRC mandates a particular approach to youth justice. It examines the balance between welfare and justice concerns found within the text of the UNCRC and reflects on what this means for the development of rights-compliant youth justice systems.

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