Youth Offending Teams in the Socio-political History of British Youth Justice

The purpose of this paper is to attempt the British Youth Offending Teams and political histories in youth Justice: Lessons for youth justice reform in the Republic of Korea. Also the aim of the study is to incite Korean criminal justice system, especially police service to consider seriously this issue as a main part of justice system's response to juvenile crimes, by introducing the British experiences in terms of perspectives, regulations and practice despite certain limitations specific to the country. Youth crime has been a highly publicized concern for many years. Focusing on the development of youth justice in the UK, the fear of youth crime will be placed in a social and historical context and it will illustrate that this fear is not a new phenomenon. Concerns about the behavior of young people can be traced back to as early as the seventeenth century. It will be illustrated that this fear has continued through the decades. However, whilst it can be seen that the actual fear of youth crime outweighs the reality, it is still a fact that young people do commit a large percentage of crimes in our society. Section Ⅱ will identify some of the key risk factors in determining the likelihood of young people becoming involved in offending. Section Ⅲ will consider how youths have been dealt with in the criminal justice system through the last century. Some of the key changes in legislation will be identified. It will show how the treatment of young offenders transitioned from a punitive approach at the turn of the twentieth century towards a welfare approach in the post war period. The reversal of this trend through the 1970s and 1980s will be discussed, through to the most recent legislation, the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. Section Ⅳ will look in more depth at the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act and the subsequent responses of the Youth Offending Teams (YOT). Finally, in Section V, it is suggested that there should be a significant improvement in the response of the South Korean government and constabulary to youth offenders.