7 Summary of Session 8

In this final session you have explored bold and challenging visions of youth justice. These locate youth justice practice and principles firmly in struggle against social injustice. Following the logic of the four principles of youth justice with integrity can even lead to a utopian vision of the abolition of youth justice as it becomes displaced by wider transformations of local communities. The utopias and manifestos considered in this final session offer anyone interested in helping children live well much to think about. They are consistent with the ideas and visions which led to the establishment of The Open University in 2019 and the universal humanism that propels the United Nation’s concerns for children’s rights.

• Youth justice with integrity involves practice and policy guided by four principles: The four principles are:
  1. Social and economic justice for youth justice
  2. Comprehensiveness, universality and social engagement
  3. Diversion
  4. Child-appropriate justice.
• The implications of these principles are that interventions to support positive behaviour take precedence over punishment.
• Doing youth justice with integrity involves recognition of social injustice.
• Children’s rights offer an international framework and perspective to develop child-friendly youth justice.