Youth justice systems and practices in Ireland have been shaped by the socio-political context, impacted by religious and moral imperatives and prolonged political conflict. The criminal justice systems and the response to children and young people in conflict with the law in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have common antecedents and many shared historical legacies – including a shared legislative framework (Children Act 1908) and the reformatory and industrial school system (which has been the subject of recent historic inquiry on both sides of the border). Partition under the Government of Ireland Act (1920) ultimately led to the establishment of two separate jurisdictions. In what was to eventually become the Republic of Ireland, there was a significant period of policy stagnation with new legislation to replace the 1908 Act only introduced in 2001 (Children Act 2001).The development of the state response to young people in conflict with the law within Northern Ireland has broader parallels with other UK jurisdictions (particularly England and Wales) up until the 1960s, but is overlaid by the subsequent security/criminal justice response to civil and political conflict from this period onwards. Edited by Nicola Carr and Siobhán McAlister the special issue of Youth Justice focusses on the some of the legacies of the past on the patterning of the present configuration of youth justice in Ireland North and South. The edition includes the following articles:
Ursula Kilkelly – Diverging or Emerging from Law? The Practice of Youth Justice in Ireland
Deena Haydon – Early Intervention for the Prevention of Offending in Northern Ireland
and Nicola Carr – Experiences of Youth Justice: Youth Justice Discourses and Their Multiple Effects
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