This briefing urges the government to take bold action to reimagine youth justice. We set out changes new Ministers must prioritise to ensure a safeguarding response to vulnerable children, end racial injustice, and guarantee that custody is a last resort.

This second report from the Young Advocates Project presents findings from engagement with 90 children and young people across England and Wales, and focuses on the three priority topics of criminalisation, policing, and intervention and diversion. The aim was to explore the routes into the justice system for young people, as compared to pathways out and away from it.

This briefing, part of a project funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust, explores how racially minoritised young people experience particularly destabilising transitions to adulthood due to deficits in support before and after turning 18. It highlights the crucial role the ‘by and for’ voluntary and community sector plays in addressing these shortfalls.

The AYJ has responded to a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) consultation on youth remand funding arrangements. The response summarises discussions that took place in a meeting convened between expert AYJ members and the MoJ remand consultation team to feed in their views.

The AYJ has submitted evidence to a Justice Select Committee inquiry into the future prison population and estate capacity, in order to draw the Committee’s attention to how the Ministry of Justice's current strategy for managing the adult prison population is impacting children and young people in the children’s secure estate.

Over 30 organisations working with & on behalf of children and young adults in criminal justice system have called on Youth Justice Minister Damian Hinds to act over the appalling treatment of children in the secure estate.

This evidence review, part of a three-year project on transition into adulthood funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust, summarises the policy context and existing evidence on young people turning 18 in the criminal justice system.

The AYJ has responded to a consultation on a new Policy Framework and supporting guidance on safeguarding and child protection for secure settings in the Youth Custody Service.

The AYJ has responded to the Children’s Rights Alliance for England’s (CRAE) call for written evidence to inform the Civil Society Alternative Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2022.

This briefing presents the significant challenges for the children’s secure estate that lie ahead in the wake of the pandemic. It examines existing failures pre-pandemic, the significant risk of harm to children in custody as a result of experiences during the pandemic, failures in strategy for the children’s secure estate, and the government projection that the number of children in custody will steeply rise in coming years.

This briefing considers key challenges for the youth justice system that have been brought about, aggravated or accentuated by the pandemic. It demonstrates how the youth justice system is at a critical juncture, considers future directions for justice for children, and calls for lessons to be learnt from experiences during the pandemic.

This briefing explores the significant risk of a surge in the number of children drawn into the justice system following the pandemic as a result of the exacerbation of children’s vulnerabilities, support services under severe strain, and the complex and challenging policy context.

This briefing, “We’ve not given up”: Young women surviving the criminal justice system, in partnership with Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, looks into young women’s pathways into the criminal justice system in collaboration with young women and expert practitioners.

This first report from the Young Advocates Project presents findings from engagement with over 120 young people across England and Wales, and focuses on the three priority topics of stereotypes, education and warning signs, and jail (custody). The aim was to identify patterns that run through society, and the education and justice systems overall, to find out what young people feel increases the chance of entering the justice system.

AYJ has responded to the Ministry of Justice’s Prisons Strategy White Paper which sets out the government’s 10-year vision for a reformed prison system. At the AYJ, we welcome that the MoJ has not included the children’s secure estate in its strategy for prisons. However, we also recognise that a comprehensive, long-term vision for the children’s secure estate is desperately needed and long overdue.

At the AYJ, six principles for youth justice policy underpin our way of working. We have used these as a framework for our response to the Commission’s call for evidence which focuses on children in, or at risk of involvement in, the justice system. Thank you to all AYJ members who took the time to support our submission.

‘I wanted to be heard’ focuses on girls and young women in contact with the criminal justice system and their experiences of violence, abuse, and exploitation. In particular, it highlights the experiences of Black and minoritised young women, and young women with experience of the care system.

Our extensive second reading briefing, examines the impacts of the Bill, identifying where new measures should be added to address missed opportunities; where provisions stand to reverse recent progress in youth justice and must be removed; and where existing proposals should be amended to maximise their positive potential or address unintended negative consequences.

This literature review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing policy, practice and research literature about the impacts of COVID-19 on the youth justice system. The review considers the impacts of the pandemic across each stage of the youth justice system, bringing together findings from community-based responses, the courts, and the secure estate.

The AYJ has published written evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on the implications of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill for children.