Introduction and context

The United Kingdom currently has one of the highest juvenile prison populations in Western Europe (Goldson, 2005). This is against a backdrop of falling crime rates but heightened public, media and political perceptions to the contrary (Pitts, 2000, 2003; Tonry, 2004). The Commissioner for Human Rights noted that ‘juvenile trouble-makers’ in the UK were ‘too rapidly drawn into the criminal justice system and young offenders are too readily placed in detention’ (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 1995; Council of Europe Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, 2005: 27). As Goldson (1999; see Goldson and Coles in this volume) has pointed out, the decade following the murder of Jamie Bulger in the UK saw a ‘punitive populist’ response to youth crime, with a doubling of custodial sentences since 1992, in a decade that has seen youth crime decrease by 16% (Nacro, 2003).

Perceived scandals and crises in parole and the community management of offenders (including young offenders) have also resulted in an increased tightening of the system. Recent years have seen an unprecedented amount of official guidance given to criminal justice agencies on the assessment and management of high-risk offenders. Nash (2006) identifies 12 probation circulars on this issue in 2005, and 2006 saw six circulars and The risk of harm guidance and training resource (version 3) (Kemshall et al, 2008), with a significant upturn following the publication of the serious further offence reports on Hanson and White, and Anthony Rice (HMI Probation, 2006a, 2006b). These reports highlighted both practice and process deficiencies in the assessment and management of high-risk offenders, and served to sharpen the debate about public protection. Such scandals and crises result in overt regulation within which the regulation and accountability of decision making becomes politicised. This is evidenced by the comments of the then incoming Home Secretary John Reid who stated: