Juvenile Offending in Northern Ireland

• Author: Gerard Kelly
• Position: Senior Sophister LLB Candidate, Trinity College Dublin
• Pages: 49-69

JUVENILE

OFFENDING

IN

NORTHERN

IRELAND:

PERSPECTIVES

ON

INTERVENTIONS WITH

YOUNG

PEOPLE

AT

RISK

GERARD

KELLY*

The

primary

determinant

of

children's

behaviour

in

Northern

Ireland,

or

anywhere

else

for

that matter,

is

the

social,

moral

and

economic

climate

within

which

they

grow

up.

Juvenile

offending presents

a

particular

challenge

to

society.

It

demands

carefully

tailored responses

from

a

society which

is

often aghast

at

what

appears

to be

a

rising

tide

of

juvenile

delinquency.

However,

juvenile

offending

is

not

a

new

problem.

As

Geoffrey Pearson notes:

From

the early

1600s

the

streets

of

London

and

other

cities

had

been

terrorised

by

a

succession

of

organised

gangs..,

who found

their

amusement

in

breaking

windows,

demolishing

taverns, assaulting

the

Watch,

attacking wayfarers,

rolling

old

ladies

in

barrels,

and other

violent frolics.

2

Modem

society

is

certainly

in

a

better position

to

evaluate

and

respond

to

the

risk factors

ofjuvenile

offending, rather

than dismissing

such

offenders

as

"the

wild,

the

dirty,

the

tattered,

the

untamed".

3

The

identification

of

risk

factors

presents

an

opportunity

to

target

"at

risk"

juveniles.

The

backdrop

.Senior

Sophister

LLB

Candidate,

Trinity

College Dublin.

The

author

is

grateful to

Ms.

Ivana

Bacik,

Reid

Professor

of

Criminal

Law, for

her

advice

and assistance

in

the

preparation

of

an

earlier

draft

of

this

paper.

I

Report

of

the

Children

and Young Persons

in

Northern

Ireland Review Group

(Black

Report)

1979.

2

Pearson,

Hooligan:

A

History ofRespectable

Fears

(The

MacMillan Press,

1983),

at

188.

3

O'Sullivan,

"Juvenile Justice

and

the

Regulation

of

the Poor:

Restored

to

Virtue,

to

Society

and

to

God"

in

Bacik

and

O'Connell

eds.,

Crime

and

Poverty

in

Ireland

(Round

Hall, Sweet

and

Maxwell,

1998)

68,

at

77.

The quotation

is

Margaret

Aylward's,

the

founder

of

the

Sisters

of

the

Holy

Faith.

However, her view

was characteristic

of

the

times.

O'Sullivan

notes:

The

habits and

behaviour

of

the

working

class

young

were

an

affront

to

these

middle

class

social

explorers, whose

idea

of

what

young childhood

should consist

of

was

at

variance

with what

they

witnessed

in

the

squalid, working

class

districts.

© 2006

Gerard

Kelly

and

Dublin University

Law

Society

Trinity

College Law

Review

of

the

Troubles

is

still

too

recent

to

be

discounted

and

the

conventional

risk

factors

associated

with

juvenile

offending

must

be

viewed through

the

prism

of

Northern

Ireland's

unique social

environment. Therefore,

before

reviewing

the

literature

relating

to

the

identification

of

risk

factors,

it

is

important

to

provide

a

brief

outline

of

the

impact

of

the

Troubles

and

paramilitary-style punishment beatings.

The

new

Community

Services'

programmes,

aimed

at

addressing

the

risk

factors

of

juvenile

offending,

will

then

be

examined, with

a

view

to

assessing their

impact.

The

Nature

and

Extent

of Juvenile Offending

in

Northern

Ireland

Juvenile offending

rates

in

Northern Ireland remain

the

lowest

in

the

United Kingdom

over

the

past

thirty

years.

In

1983,

Brian

Caul

concluded

that

"...the

rate

of

juvenile

offending

in

Northern

Ireland

has

remained

substantially

lower

than

that

of

England

and

Wales".

4

He

assessed

that

within

the

period

from

1970-80,

the

juvenile

conviction

rate

for

indictable

offences in

Northern

Ireland

had "remained

fairly

constant".

5

Curran,

Young,

Kilpatrick

and Wilson carried

out

a

detailed

longitudinal

evaluation

of

serious

juvenile

offenders

in

Northern

Ireland,

who

had

been

placed

in

training

schools

between

1972

and

1990.6

They

confidently

asserted:

... Official

crime

statistics

show

that

levels

of

crime,

and juvenile

offending specifically,

since

the

1970s

in

Northern

Ireland

have

remained around

half

or

two-thirds the

rate

of

offending per

head

of

the

population

found

in

the

rest

of

the

United Kingdom.7

4

Caul,

"Juvenile

Offending

in

Northern

Ireland: A

Statistical Overview"

in

Caul,

Pinkerton

and

Powell

eds.,

The

Juvenile

Justice

System

in

Northern

Ireland

(Ulster

Polytechnic,

1983)

53,

at

57.

5Ibid.

6

'Training

Schools'

were centres

of

juvenile

detention

in

Northern

Ireland.

In

March

2000,

the

Government

published

a

review

on

the

future

of

the

juvenile justice

institutions

for

consultation, announcing

its

intention

to

'rationalise' the system.

Following

the

conclusion

of

the

consultation period

in

November

2000,

the

Government announced

that

a

single

centre

would

be

established

on

the

site

of

the

former

'training

school'

in

Rathgael.

This

facility

is

now the

Juvenile

Justice Centre

for

Northern

Ireland.

See, House

of

Commons

Standing

Committee,

Northern

Ireland

Grand

Committee,

29/11/00

stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmstand/nirelg/st001

129/01129s01

.htm>

(visited

19

October

2005), where

the

Minister

of

State

for Security,

Adam

Ingram MP,

provided

an

analysis

of

the

rationale

behind

the

construction

of

a

'purpose-built

modem

facility

on a

single

site'.

7 Curran, Young,

Kilpatrick

and Wilson,

"Serious

Juvenile

Offenders:

A Longitudinal

Evaluation"

in

McCamey

ed.,

Growing

Through

Conflict:

The

Impact

of

25

Years

of

Violence

[Vol.

9