Youth Justice in 2011 is tougher on crime than on the causes of crime.

IntroductionThe aim nooky this essay is to ascertain the stance adopted by the UK in terms of how governmental and judiciary regime deal with the problem of juvenile wickedness. In order to gain a fuller understanding of this it would be of interest to compare the perspectives of two different political leaders and how they affected the way that juvenile abuse was dealt with by authorities.On one particular weekend in August 2011 thousands of rioters took to the street and ransacked richly streets in London, Manchester, Croydon and Nottingham. The original cause of the rioting was due to a shooting in Tottenham by patrol force entirely it seemed to spread over the capital and on to other major cities. Shops were looted and others were burnt follow through over the course of a week. As a result of this, David Cameron was quick to ascertain what the causes of these riots could be. In a press conference, he suggested thatSocial problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face.Our tribute fightback must be matched by a social fightback (Cameron 2011)Such was the stance eventually taken by the union government as a response to the riots. A similar statement had been famously stated by Tony Blair fourteen courses earlier where he specified in his election speech that weary believedin personal responsibility and in punishing villainy, but also its underlying causes so backbreakingon nuisance, tough on the causes of crime (Blair 1997).However, the question remains as to whether these two politically differing views really are so different from each other. The rhetoric seems to be the same. That is, in order to be tough on the crime that it would be necessary to discover the root cause of the crime committed. The question has to be asked as to how faraway the existing legislation go in achieving that.According to a recent governmental report on the Youth arbitrator Service, ?800 million was spent on dealing with young p eople over the forward twelve years. Also, while 10% of that figure was spent on prevention, approximately 90% was spent on actually dealing with the offending behaviour (Soloman and Garside 2008). Critics had seen this as a symptom of what had been wrong with Labours policy regarding the Youth Justice system.Indeed, the same criticism can and has been levelled at the Coalition government judging by their initial reply to the 2011 London riots. David Cameron famously condemned the riots as being caused by pure transgression and nothing else. It was only after the initial reaction that the Government had stated that a social fightback (Cameron 2011) was postulate as much as the security fightback was. However, the Governments initial reaction was soon reverberate by other members of the public and thither was seen to be a lack of analytical reaction from anybody isolated from a few. According to Ohana and Otten (2011)Except among a few youth experts and political comment ators on the so-called go away there was little mention of or analysis involving the racist shooting that triggered the violence in the runner place, or the desperate condition of the neighbourhoods in which many of the young people who rioted live.Most importantly of all, there was next to no mention of the fact that whole generations of young people have simply been dispose to the elements by an uncaring state, unwilling to see its own responsibility in creating the conditions that have made such events possible (Ohana and Otten 2011 244).This view corresponds with other views which also specify that it ought to be no surprise that the media and public reaction to the riots were non-analytical in their scope Hughes (2011) specifies thatIt is of little surprise that the perceptions of the public appear to resemble those presented by the media and politicians. Rather than the ex officio crime figures, it is the stereotyping and emotive headlines that seem to have the greatest influence. (Hughes 2011 190)On the surface, this may appear to be an translucent statement to make. After all, it could be argued that the publics reaction to the riots were understandably affected by the media reporting both during and after the riots took place.However, critics were also understandably concerned that the Government had employed a kneejerk reaction but then delayed in deciding exactly what was to be done about it (LSE and The Guardian 2011 study the Riots)There was a similar response to crime in general by the Labour emulation before they took power in 1997. Blairs Labour had responded to a resurgence in crime on the streets at the time. According to Raine and Keasey (2009), they had attempted to address the problem of crime on the streets by attempting to get at what they perceived to be the source. Numerous programs were suggested and installed once they got into power, including Surestart centres and the New Deal for the unemployed. Raine and Keasey (20 09) suggested, however, that these measures only went so far in addressing the issue (Doolin 2009 126-127) of youth crime. It would seem that this also backs up the figures quoted earlier regarding the percentage of gold spent on prevention (10%) as opposed to the money spent on catching, trying and detaining criminals (90%). It could be argued that the amount of money spent on each reflects on either the priority given to prevention of crime of single governments or on an increased fault in the general populace. Again, this is a stance that is maintained by Sanders (2011) who suggested that because New Labour were essentially governing through ASB (anti-social behaviour) that there wasAn ever-increasing share of a decreasing government budget being spent on criminal justice, prison and police in particular (Silvestri 2011 12)This could be argued to show that New Labour at the time were more willing to spend money on surveillance of crime and criminals but they were not always willing to pay for maintenance of prisons, supply of police officers and the infrastructure of the criminal justice system.However, there was much emphasis from the New Labour government on focussing upon the youth which, according to Coles (2012), had only been a focus for different governmental departments pre-1997.Coles (2012) states that the Blair administration was the set-back to have a Ministry and department (Social Exclusion Unit) specifically for young people to address the NEET problem (Alcock et al 394) and thereby address the problem of anti-social behaviour. It was for this reason that the Connexions service was set upFurthermore, the same could be verbalize for the Coalitions policies regarding criminal justice. Austerity measures were talked up as being the reasons behind the cuts before the riots. However, it could be argued that some of the cuts regarding youth justice and its appendages were made too harshly. Those things that matter to individuals such as education and health are being cut back and this in turn has triggered off the mentality that was inherent in the riots. According to Will Hutton, as quoted in Ohana and Otten(2011),We are arriving at a major turning tear in our national life. It is not enough to talk about being tough on crime and the causes of crime. We need an entire root and branch reshaping of our economy and society where both rewards and punishment are able proportional and deserved, and all within a revived and larger understanding of fairness.We need good capitalism and the good society that accompanies it (Ohana and Otten 2011 245)It remains to be seen whether this present Coalition government is going to do anything about the root and branch causes behind youth crime in general and last years riots in particular.The mixed messages given out by the Government seems to indicate that they will be just as tough on the causes of criminality as they will be on criminality itself. Given the track recor d of the previous government regarding equality of expenditure between the punishment of crime and the prevention of it, this Coalition government may have a job on their hands in balancing the two.Reference ListBlair, T (1997), New Labour because Britain deserves better, The 1997 New Labour Manifesto, functional at http//www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtmlCameron, D, (2011), PMs Speech on the fightback after the riots, Monday 15th August 2011, Available at http//www.number10.gov.uk/news/pms-speech-on-the-fightback-after-the-riots/Coles, B (2012), Young People, IN Alcock, P, May, M, Wright, S, (2012), The Students Companion to Social polity, 4th Edition, LondonHughes,(2011)Ohana, Y and Otten, H, (2012), Where do you stand? Intercultural Learning and Political Education in coeval Europe, Wiesbaden, Springer Fachmedien, GermanyRaine, J and Keasey, P (2010), Introduction The Changing Politics of Law and Order, IN Doolin, K et al (ed.) (2010.), Whose Criminal Justice? State or Community?, Waterside Press, Hook, Hampshire, EnglandRusbridger, A, (2011), (ed.), Reading the Riots Investigating Englands pass of disorder, The Guardian, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Accessed at http//www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/dec/14/reading-the-riots-investigating-england-s-summer-of-disorder-full-reportSanders, A (2011), What was New Labour thinkingNew Labours approach to Criminal Justice, IN Silvestri, A (ed.), (2011), Lessons for the Coalition an end of term report on New Labour and criminal justice. Centre for disgust and Justice Studies, The Hadley Trust, LondonSoloman E, and Garside, R, (2008), Ten Years of Labours youth and justice reforms an Independent audit, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, The Hadley Trust, London Available at http//www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus647/youthjusticeaudit.pdf