Restorative Justice: the Current Use of Family Group Conferencing in Tiie British Youth Justice System

This paper will emmine the current use of family group conferencing with regard to young people in the British youth justice system. Restorative justice is currently at the pinnacle of the British political agenda and policy makers are seeking to legislate for more restorative justice practices to take place within the criminal justice system. Much has been written about restorative justice interventions, especially family group conferencing, which in England and Wales is heralded as o new way to address youth crime, a perennial problem for these countries and many other Western nations. However, the conference model used and practice context of these approaches, have received little attention in the literature with their additional implications for young people, their families, social workers and their practice. This paper begins with a brief clarffication of terms and literature review before critically examining the contemporary use of this approach.