What Prospects Youth Justice? Children in Trouble in the Age of Austerity

This article critically explores the challenges and opportunities presented by the current trajectory of the UK coalition government's youth justice policies and the implications for children living in marginalized communities. Drawing on the data generated from an ethnographic study, on youth and crime in a working class community (the Estate), the article critically appraises the prospects for youth justice in the age of austerity. The article argues that in terms of social policy in the field of criminal justice, in some respects, the austerity measures offer an opportunity to re‐examine costly and counter‐productive institutional practices and to reverse the broader criminalization of social policy which has taken hold over recent years (Muncie 1999). However, in terms of social justice, the austerity measures are translating into a radical retraction in the level of services provided to the poorest children and young people in the UK. These cuts are impacting across a range of social policy domains and will potentially place further strain on children and young people coming of age in socially excluded contexts. The article concludes by offering a critical appraisal of the extent to which the proposed payment by results model, which is being presented as the social policy model to replace elements of state sector provision, can meet the needs of children growing up and getting by in marginalized communities or whether it will further exacerbate their marginalization and exclusion.