Abstract
To understand what the current structure of youth justice is, how structures are developed and what a good structure looks like need to be considered. Checkland’s Soft Systems Thinking (SST) is given as a clear and systematic approach to the understanding and development of organisational structures. The process of SST is discussed and related to Rawls’s principles of justice as fairness, particularly with regard to the concept of Weltanschaaung. Through the SST process, purposeful activity for youth justice is defined, which highlights what youth justice should be achieving in practice. From this the current structure of youth justice can be considered and evaluated. This includes discussion of top-down approaches, multi-agency working and service pathways, managerialism, and the culture of youth justice. This structure is considered in terms of its aims, if it achieves purposeful activity, and if it could be considered to be socially just. It is necessary to understand what aspects of the system are and are not working at present, and why this is the case, before solutions and alternatives can be identified.
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Urwin, J. (2018). The Current State of Youth Justice. In: A Return to Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73043-1_3
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