The Significance of School-Based Reports

Abstract

This chapter traces the significance of school-based assessments in the practice of youth justice. School performance (attendance, behaviour and intelligence) is one of the primary tools for assessing young people once they end up in youth courts. In the majority of cases, schools are contacted in a bid to get information and advice on a youth’s personality and overall situation. This input is highly authoritative and rarely challenged. This chapter focuses on how school discourses get transferred into the youth-justice sphere, what they come to mean in this context and how they impact judicial assessments. Towards the end of chapter, the discussion is raised on whether negative school experiences (of Roma youth and, to a lesser extent, of Caucasian youth) are reframed as (signals of) delinquency. Often, negative school experiences and discriminatory practices in education are reflected in the problematisations in youth justice, albeit within a different framing. The chapter highlights the notion of ‘entextualisation’ (extracting discourse from its original context and reinserting it in another setting) and discusses how prejudiced assessments become transferred and reframed across institutional contexts that have essentially different commitments.

Parts of this chapter (the analysis with regard to Roma youth and in a shorter and restructured version) have been accepted for publication in Youth Justice. An International Journal (forthcoming).