ERIC Number: EJ689247
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 15
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1098-2140
EISSN: N/A
Evaluating Youth Justice in the UK. Conference
Paylor, Ian; Simmill-Binning, Cheryl
American Journal of Evaluation, v25 n3 p335-349 2004
In the UK, following the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) funded over 450 separate crime prevention schemes. The YJB in approving these various schemes stressed the importance of monitoring and evaluation. Local evaluators were appointed whose role was to report back to the funding agency and the national evaluators. We were commissioned to undertake the local evaluation of four separate schemes. This article attempts an overview of the evaluation process and identifies five crucial areas that raise questions about whether the Youth Offending Teams are the "unqualified success" and such a fine example of "joined-up government" that the Youth Justice Board claims (YJB, 2001). In this article, we examine the setting up process (and offer a case study of one particular scheme), issues of inter-agency work and the links between schemes and local communities; procedures and protocols and on what evidence policy was being based; the relationship between the national and local evaluators (and other stakeholders); and finally, the feasibility of achieving the scheme's ambitions given the duration of the funding and the resources available.
Descriptors: Justice, Crime, Crime Prevention, Foreign Countries, Evaluators, Program Evaluation, Youth
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A