By The Alliance for Youth Justice

Developed through consultation with our members and informed by evidence from children and young people,1 this briefing sets the youth justice agenda for the incoming government. We present the changes new Ministers must prioritize to work towards a society that promotes social justice and enables all children to reach their full potential. The incoming government must be ambitious about reimagining what ‘justice’ means for children, to achieve a safeguarding response to children at risk, promote racial justice, and ensure the use of custody is a last resort. Only then will the costly cycle of harm and offending be stopped, enabling all children to thrive. • A change in oversight and accountability is required to ensure children in or at risk of involvement in the justice system are treated as children. • Resources should be invested in local communities to support their children and aid prevention and desistance from crime, rather than in costly crisis intervention and punitive responses. • Clear strategies are needed to drive policy and practice change to keep children safe, end the imprisonment of children, and target and tackle racial disparities. This briefing provides a short overview of the issues and solutions to them, and we offer our ongoing support in further developing these much-needed reforms through engagement with our expert members.  

London: The Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ): 2024. 32p.   

Edited by Maya Avis, Daniel Marciniak and Maria Sapignoli   

Recent discussions on big data surveillance and artificial intelligence in governance have opened up an opportunity to think about the role of technology in the production of the knowledge states use to govern. The contributions in this volume examine the socio-technical assemblages that underpin the surveillance carried out by criminal justice institutions – particularly the digital tools that form the engine room of modern state bureaucracies. Drawing on ethnographic research in contexts from across the globe, the contributions to this volume engage with technology’s promises of transformation, scrutinise established ways of thinking that become embedded through technologies, critically consider the dynamics that shape the political economy driving the expansion of security technologies, and examine how those at the margins navigate experiences of surveillance. The book is intended for an interdisciplinary academic audience interested in ethnographic approaches to the study of surveillance technologies in policing and justice. Concrete case studies provide students, practitioners, and activists from a broad range of backgrounds with nuanced entry points to the debate.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 201p.