Youth Justice Handbook

In 2007, the Open University assembled a group of academics, policy advisers and practitioners to address the question ‘What knowledge and skills do you need to practise effectively as a professional within the youth justice system?’ (p. xv). While the immediate purpose was to inform the curriculum of the Foundation Degree in Youth Justice, the colloquium also paved the way for the Youth Justice Handbook. In drawing this collection together, the intention was not to provide a manual or ‘how to’ guide. Rather, what the editors ‘had in mind was a friendly companion with which to consider some—although inevitably not all—of the most pressing issues for practitioners in youth justice today’ (p. xxi). In this, they have succeeded admirably. Taken as a whole, the book adopts a consciously critical stance that seeks to ‘encourage the process of reflection largely by airing a set of “counter” discourses to current practice and in providing a sense of wider contexts’ (p. 255). The result makes for a lively, accessible and informative read

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