Governmentalities Approach To Youth Offending

According to the Ministry of Justice (2018) Between April 2016 – March 2017, 74, 800 children aged between 10-17 were arrested by police in England and Wales. From the 74, 800 children arrested, 25,700 of them were sentenced at court (Ministry of Justice, 2018). Meaning for the 25,700 that received sentences their future prospects could be limited, due to being labelled, blamed and deemed a potential risk to society (White and Cunneen, 2006). Consequently, being associated as a criminal could limit the young person’s opportunities later in life to find provisions such as employment and housing (McAra and McVie, 2016). This could prove detrimental to many young people given the suggestion that a large number of young people who commit crimes

Starting by, briefly discussing how the approach to youth offending through governmentality has changed since the introduction of the youth justice board through the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.To then defining social class and exploring Governmentalities approach to youth offending through the ASSETPLUS assessment. Followed by discussing youth offending statistics and the individualisation of society and how this leads to young offenders becoming labelled. To then, explore how a young person’s socio-economic status can change what they view as a risk or critical moment. Ending by, discussing how making mistakes and placing yourself ‘at risk’ could be deemed a part of growing into an

39) is a concept that derived from Foucault’s work and can be described as “the way government seeks to manage and regulate various sectors in society.” Or put simply how law and order are maintained in a society. According to Lupton (1999) governmentality in the west, in the concept of risk seeks to govern through a heterogeneous network of actors, institutions and studies to make the ungovernable, governable. The new emphasis on risk in the youth justice system in England and Wales has led to probability calculations of risk to evaluate the likelihood that a young person will offend or re-offend (Paylor, 2011). Risk according to Lupton (1999, p. 8) is “a threat, hazard, danger or harm”. Therefore, in the context of youth offending a child who is ‘at risk’ of offending or re-offending they are deemed as a possible “threat, hazard, danger or harm” to people within