My time as a YJB Board member – Professor Neal Hazel
As his 6 and a half year tenure came to a close in August, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice Neal Hazel reflects on his time as a Board member.
1. Tell us a little about you and your work history?
My research has always been focused on young people and families. My PhD and early work focused on children’s experiences of physical punishment, which was a huge debate in the 1990s and early 2000s. My PhD[1] tried to add children’s voices to this debate. In my first professional research post, we conducted the first ever national survey of discipline. That research, with the NSPCC, informed their campaign leading to the 2005 ban on parents causing children actual bodily harm.
At that time, there was a lot of research funding in youth justice, and I found myself evaluating Medway Secure Training Centre[2] when it opened. I remember panicking during the analysis because none of the Medway regime factors made a statistical difference to who reoffended – what were we going to recommend? I realised that the significant variables were about support for what happened after release. That brought a policy focus on resettlement, and it seemed to become a career niche, including the evaluating the detention and training order (with its custody-community split sentence), YJB resettlement consortia pilots[3], and writing policy guidance[4].
Then, during the Beyond Youth Custody[5] research, we realised the importance of pro-social identity development as underlying effective resettlement support. This turned into the YJB’s Constructive Resettlement[6] model, which has now proved so important, and which underpins the second Child First tenet.
2. What made you apply to become a YJB Board member?
I’m passionate about ensuring that policy and practice is evidence-based to ensure better outcomes, and particularly in youth justice where there’s always a concern that politics will take it in the opposite direction. So when the YJB Board member position was advertised, I applied with the hope that the YJB was in a position to listen to a new generation of evidence about what works.
Prior to when I joined in January 2018, there had been a criticism of the YJB (certainly from academics) that its evidence base was somewhat stuck in the ‘risk paradigm’ of the 1990s and so ignored contemporary understandings. However, on joining, it was clear that the then-Chair, Charlie Taylor, had gathered around him a Board that was ready to hear the new evidence base and keen for reform, and colleagues at the YJB have embraced it.
3. Which particular achievement/s or project/s during your time at the YJB are you most proud of?
Undoubtedly what I’m most proud of is leading the development of Child First[7] and its tenets. Charlie Taylor had stated in his 2016 youth justice report that we should have a youth justice system “in which young people are treated as children first and offenders second”. But it became obvious that this meant different things to different people, and there was a lack of clarity among policy and practice about how it could be translated into reality. That was the sort of problem that I was quick to volunteer for, and then decided to work a definition around our contemporary understanding of what works. We then realised that its bullet points could be a decision-making tool. I worked out the other day that there are actually 33 important concepts that we managed to pack into the wording of those four tenets!
Second, I’m very proud of working with Paula Williams (YJB) to translate the Beyond Youth Custody research into the Constructive Resettlement model[8], and how that’s been translated into practice and produced positive outcomes. There are some brilliant examples around the country. In particular. how youth justice services like Swindon YJS have used the model of providing children with fresh ‘AIR’ (activities, interactions and roles) to develop pro-social identity – including setting up a pizza-making enterprise (allowing children to take on roles of chef, marketing, finance), hairdressers, producing a poetry book, and lots of other really innovative ideas. These allow children to see themselves in constructive ways, rather than allowing gangs and others to groom a pro-offending identity.
What will stay with me most of all from my time at the YJB is that I’ve been involved with so many people who are absolutely committed to doing the right thing and to achieve positive outcomes for children and communities. Seeing colleagues’ resilient determination to find a way past whatever obstacles in order to push the system in the right direction. That’s kept me going when I’ve been frustrated with slow change.
4. What do you think will be most important for the YJB to focus on in the coming years?
I hope the YJB continues to be on the front foot when pushing for positive change, as it the only organisation with statutory responsibility to oversee the entire youth justice system. It’s in a unique position to recognise issues falling through the system’s gaps and to ensure that the evidence base is realised across a child’s journey.
There are two big challenges it faces in ensuring evidence-based practice. One is helping organisations, including YJSs, work out what Child First means in different situations on the ground. The other is ensuring Child First alignment across the whole system – beyond the YJB’s previous focus on youth justice services. For instance, I’ve been looking at this with MOPAC, and with Madeleine Colledge (YJB) on the YJB’s Child First Policing position statement. What does being aligned to Child First mean to for strip searching, use of Tasers, use of handcuffs, for detention?
I’m sure the YJB will continue to focus on substantive issues including exploitation of vulnerable children through county lines and gangs, and the resulting involvement in serious violence like knife crime.
5. What key pieces of work are you currently involved in?
My biggest project at the moment is the largest ever survey of children’s experiences of crime in Britain[9]. It is also the first national survey to look in detail at online experiences, which I think the YJB will want to be more focused on in the future. We’ve finished data collection and we’re now doing the analysis, so I’m hoping there’ll be a lots of lessons for YJB colleagues.
The second piece of work I’m really involved in is extending the research messages around pro-social identity to young adults, and working with HMPPS and others to explore what it means. It’s the equivalent of youth justice’s Using an Identity Lens[10] guidance, and is due out in the next couple of months.
6. How do you plan to stay involved with the YJB and youth justice after your tenure ends?
I’ll still be around in the youth justice sphere, both in my research and as a National Children’s Bureau[11] trustee. I won’t be able to stop pushing for evidence-based youth justice, and I’m always passionate about informing anyone who will listen about the latest research understandings.
Of course, I’ll always be available for my YJB colleagues to contact, plus I will also still be involved with the YJB’s Academic Liaison Network. And I guess that I’ll even be able to apply for YJB research commissions, which I haven’t done during my tenure.
I’m also determined to follow through on Child First. I’ll continue to work with Professor of Youth Justice Steve Case[12] and other colleagues to develop the learning further academically, and join with great practitioners like Michael O’Conner (then-Head of Swindon Youth Justice Service) to advise organisations on putting it all into practice. As we know, that’s what will bring positive child outcomes, safer communities and fewer victims.
[2] evaluating Medway Secure Training Centre
[3] YJB resettlement consortia pilots
[8] Constructive Resettlement model
[9] survey of children’s experiences of crime in Britain