The Crime and Disorder Act 1998: Child and Community ‘Safety’
The provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 ('the Act') relating to children and young people came as no surprise to those with academic and professional interests in youth justice and crime prevention, such provisions being based on measures previously outlined in the White Paper, No More Excuses A New Approach to Tackling Youth Crime in England and Wales,1 and in the Audit Commission's Report, Misspent Youth, Young People and Crime.2 However, the scope and significance of those provisions may have escaped more general notice, partly because the title does not suggest a focus on children and young people and also because debate, in Parliament and the media, in the weeks immediately before the Act received the Royal Assent on 31 July 1998, was dominated by controversy around an amendment, which was not enacted, to lower the age of consent for homosexual sex from 18 to 16 years.3 The Act as a whole provides new court orders relating to the prevention and punishment of crime and disorder, amends the criminal law and revises aspects of the youth and adult criminal justice systems. However, the Act's title does not give any indication that so many of the Act's provisions are aimed at minors. Family lawyers, for example, may only now be noting that the Act has provisions which, when implemented,4 will make new orders available to the Family Proceedings Court. Indeed, one might argue that if the Act had been entitled the 'Children and Young Persons' Act' that would not have been so very misleading, given the focus of such a large proportion of the Act5 on those under 18 years of age.6 The many provisions of the Act relating to children and young people have the potential, as had the Children Act 1989, for changing professional philosophies for working with children and families and for influencing how we 'see' children.