This professional task requires that the format of a briefing paper be followed. A briefing paper should include the following:
A succinct summary of the issues, including your stance on the issue
A relevant and brief background to the issue
A concise analysis of the issue and policy implications
A conclusion and recommendation for action (must be supported by evidence)
For the Word template to be used for this assessment task in “Additional Materials”
For detailed instructions on how to complete each section of the briefing paper “Additional Materials”
Length 1500 words
As part of this assessment you are asked to imagine that The Australian NSW Government is seeking submissions from relevant stakeholders in the field of youth justice (e.g. police, legal aid, case managers, adolescent psychologists, advocacy groups, teachers and researchers) in relation to the following proposals:
1. Abolish the principle of ’doli incapax’ from criminal matters involving children aged 10 – 14 years of age.
2. Abolish the requirement for ’admission of guilt’ from the Young Offenders Act 1997 NSW to support increased use of diversionary measures in responding to youth offending.
Your Task: Select ONE of the above proposals and write a 1,500 word (+/-10% leniency) ’briefing paper’ advising the Australian NSW Government of the possible consequences, of the proposal in question, for young people in NSW. As a general Guide your Briefing Paper MUST:
Include a minimum of 5 scholarly sources (e.g. journal articles, books, book chapters, and respected government research papers and website).
Must acknowledge the ideas of others; reference direct quotes properly using the Harvard referencing system and include a reference list at the end. The reference list is NOT included in the 1,500 word count, but in-text references are,
Viewpoints need to be substantiated using relevant literature, empirical evidence, and convincing argument.
The briefing paper must be word-processed, doubled spaced and use a 12pt font that is legible.
Please include some of the Module resources for referencing shown down in the “Additional Materials”
Module 1: Origins of Youth Justice:
Cunneen, C, White, R & Richards, K 2015, ‘The development of juvenile justice’, in Juvenile justice: youth crime and crime in Australia, 5th edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. 2 – 23.
O’Brien, W, and Fitz-Gibbon, K 2017, ‘The minimum age of criminal responsibility in Victoria (Australia): Examining stakeholders’ views and the need for principled reform’, Youth Justice, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 134 – 152.
Crofts, T 2019, ‘Will Australia raise the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility?’, Criminal Law Journal, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 26-40.
Fitz-Gibbon, K and O’Brien, W 2019, ‘A Child’s capacity to commit crime: Examining the operation of Doli Incapax in Victoria (Australia)’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.18-33.
Fitz-Gibbon, K 2016, ‘Protections for children before the law: An empirical analysis of the age of criminal responsibility, the abolition of doli incapax and the merits of a developmental immaturity defence in England and Wales’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 391 – 409.
Pillay, A L 2015, ‘Deliberating the minimum age of criminal responsibility’, South African Journal of Psychology, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 143-146.
Module 2: Nature and extent of Youth offending:
France, A, Botrell, D and Derrick, A 2012, ’A Theory of the Political Ecology of Youth and Crime’, in A Political Ecology of Youth Crime, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, pp. 18 – 34.
Clancey, G., Wang, S., and Lin, B 2020, ’Youth justice in Australia: Themes from recent inquiries’, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, No. 605, Australian institute of Criminology, Canberra
Module 3: Correlates of Offending & Victimisation:
Baldry, E, Briggs, D, Goldson, B and Russell, S 2017, ‘Cruel and unusual punishment’: An inter-jurisdictional study of the criminalisation of young people with complex support needs’, Journal of Youth Studies, vol. 21 , no. 5, pp. 636 – 652.
McFarlane, K 2017, ‘Care-criminalisation: The involvement of children in out-of-home care in the New South Wales criminal justice system’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, vol. 51 , no. 3, pp. 412 – 433.
Module 4: Youth Governance:
McAlister, S and Carr, N 2014, ‘Experiences of youth justice: Youth justice discourses and their multiple effects’, Youth Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 241 – 254.
Muncie, J 2006, ‘Governing young people: coherence and contradiction in contemporary youth justice’, Critical Social Policy, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 770 – 793.
Case, S 2016, ‘Communicating risk in youth justice: A numbers game’, in J. Critchton, C. Candlin and A. Firkins (eds.), Communicating Risk, Palgrave MacMillan: Hampshire, pp. 121 – 137.
Case, S, Creaney, S, Deakin, J and Haines, K 2015, ‘Youth justice: Past, present and future’, British Journal of Community Justice, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 99 – 110.
Goddard, T and Myers, R 2017, ‘Against evidence-based oppression: Marginalized youth and the politics of risk-based assessment intervention’, Theoretical Criminology, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 151 – 167.
Lockwood, I, Peterson-Badali, M and Schmidt, F 2018, ‘The relationships between risk, criminogenic need, and recidivism for Indigenous justice-involved youth’, Criminal Justice and Behavior, vol. 45, no. 11, pp. 1688 – 1708.
Module 5: Responding to Offending:
Cunneen, C., Russell, S., and Schwartz, M 2021, ’Principles in diversion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people from the criminal jurisdiction’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 170 – 190.
Pearce, E 2021, ’Why ’admission of guilt’ is not working in youth diversionary schemes in NSW – exploratory findings from interviews with police officers’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, vol. 33 , no. 3 , pp. 285 – 289.
Cunneen, C , Goldson, B, and Russell, S 2016, ‘Juvenile justice, young people and human rights in Australia’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 173 – 189.
Maglione, G 2018, ‘The political rationality of restorative justice’, Theoretical Criminology, pp. 1 -18. DOI:10.1177/1362480618756364.
Gibson, L 2019, ‘The Abolition of Doli Incapax and the Alternatives to Raising the Age of Criminal Responsibility’. Northumbria Legal Studies Working Paper Series, No. 5.
Antolak-Saper N 2020, ‘The adultification of the youth justice system: The Victorian experience’, Law in Context, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 99 – 113.