Welcome to Scotland’s Youth Justice Website
A key element of Scottish Ministers’ vision is that all of our children and young people are successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. The current Cabinet Secretary for Justice is Kenny MacAskill MSP. Fergus Ewing MSP is the current Minister for Community Safety who is also responsible for Youth Justice issues.
In order to achieve Ministers’ vision, they need to be nurtured, safe, healthy, achieving, active, included, respected and responsible. (more…..)
Who we are and what we do
The Youth Justice and Children’s Hearings Division is part of the Children Young People and Social Care Group of the Education Department at the Scottish Executive. We aim to improve the speed and quality of service provision to children and young people in order to reduce offending and re-offending and improve outcomes for vulnerable children through the Hearings system.
Meeting needs and deeds
The vast majority of Scotland's young people play an active and positive role in our communities and are a great source of optimism for our future. In addition to providing input that will allow children to meet their full potential, a complete range of effective services is needed to address the behaviour and developmental needs of the minority of our young people who are involved in, or at risk of becoming involved in, offending behaviour. These services need to be effectively targeted and tailored to ensure that the young people who need them can address their behaviour and work towards reaching their full potential. These measures range from preventative and diversionary initiatives aimed at those on the periphery of offending through to intensive community based services and secure accommodation for our most troubled (and troublesome) young people.
Rapid developments across Scotland
The work taken forward to tackle youth offending has developed and expanded greatly since devolution. The youth justice website details the latest policy developments in relation to youth justice in Scotland along with details of the approaches, services, programmes and initiatives that are available across the country. In addition, further detail on policies and practices in place throughout Scotland can be found in the themes section of the site. The site also has extensive document and news archives along with details of the wide range of partners involved in Scotland's youth justice system.
We hope you find the site informative and helpful. If you would like further information that is not available on the site please contact us at youth.justice@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.
The photographs on this site have been modelled by young people from the Castlemilk Youth Complex in Glasgow. We would like to acknowledge their participation and thank the staff and young people for their enthusiasm and support. www.castlemilkyouthcomplex.co.uk. |
