Final Warning, Youth Justice And Early Intervention: Reflections On The Findings Of A Research Study Carried Out In Northern England.

Lynn Keightley-Smith

School of Health, Natural and Social Sciences, University of Sunderland,
[email protected]

Peter Francis

Division of Sociology and Criminology, Northumbria University,
[email protected]

Copyright © 2007 Lynn Keightley-Smith and Peter Francis
First published in the Web Jounal of Current Legal Issues.

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the findings of a qualitative study carried out into the operation of final warning in a metropolitan city in northern England.  Specifically the research discussed here draws upon the experiences of police inspectors and final warning officers involved in the implementation, delivery and administration of final warning as well as of the young people on the receiving end of it. We argue that the reform continues to allow many of the problems of the previous caution and cautioning plus system but within a much more formal system that can work to the detriment of the young people involved.  Not only does the paper suggests that the introduction of final warning has maintained many of the inconsistencies in police decision making associated with the previous system, it also suggests that the final warning reform has not enhanced the promotion of individual self responsibility through the introduction of earlier rehabilitative intervention as New Labour envisaged.  Indeed we argue that the promotion of self-responsibility through a programme of early intervention can be undermined through organisational and professional values and cultures, as well as through the lack of engagement of the young people involved. 

Contents

Bibliography

Introduction

Tackling youth crime has been a central strand to New Labour since their election to government in 1997.   As part of a range of targeted interventions aimed at ‘nipping crime in the bud’ New Labour supplanted the existing youth justice system with the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and local multi-agency Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) whose remit was to provide a holistic response to young people, crime and control (see Morgan and Newburn 2007 for an excellent discussion on the reforms implemented by New Labour in relation to youth justice).   As part of this remit the system of cautioning for young people was replaced in the flagship Crime and Disorder Act 1998.   The reprimand and final warning reform marked a radical departure from well established police diversionary practices that built upon trends first apparent in the 1990’s tough on crime agenda.   The concern expressed by the then Home Secretary Jack Straw was that by repeatedly cautioning young offenders, the police and the youth justice system were failing to get the message across to young people that there are consequences to their behaviour and they can no longer carry on offending with impunity. In response, a staged system of a reprimand and final warning with the possibility of prosecution was introduced to limit police discretion and young offenders’ perceived ‘nonchalance’ to the law.  The new reform also aimed to limit perceived inconsistencies in police practices and decision making associated with the delivery of cautioning young people.

The introduction of reprimand and final warning also signalled a new approach by identifying the importance of early intervention to be delivered by YOTs following the delivery of a final warning.   It was anticipated that the system would not be viewed as a functional equivalent of the previous juvenile caution (National Standards for Youth Justice, YJB April 2000) because of the emphasis on partnership working between the police and the YOT.  Nevertheless the police maintain responsibility for the legal decision making to administer the warning.  There is neither provision nor expectation that police consult with the Youth Offending Team regarding this matter.   

Soon after their introduction, final warnings were unreservedly claimed as a ‘qualified success’ (YJB News, December 2001) based on tentative findings from a Home Office reconviction study that suggested that final warnings had a statistically better outcome of around 6 per cent than a comparison caution group, when set against the predicted level of reoffending over a one year follow up period (Hine and Celnick, 2001).   Another study by Jennings, 2003) identified a drop of 22 per cent in reconvictions when measured against an adjusted predicted rate over a 12 month period.  Evidence of success was further supported by Burnett and Appleton’s ‘experiential findings’ (Burnett and Appleton 2004, p.36) of new youth justice working arrangements that signified a unifying approach in partnership working.   These findings run counter to others that paint a generally confusing picture.   For instance Bailey and Williams, 2000 in their study of early YOTs found conflicts between partner agencies and Evans and Puech’s, 2001 study indicates that final warnings are no more or less effective than cautions in their impact on reoffending rates.   However the study notes that approximately half of those young people were subject to any form of intervention.   At the same time, legal arguments have centered upon how the final warning denies the rights to due process as young people are not required to consent to the warning, nor can they contest the evidence (Gillespie, 2005).   Others suggest that the loss of a right to a fair trial sheds doubt about whether the statutory scheme is consistent with children’s rights (Dingwall and Koffman, 2006).  Holdaway and Desborough, 2004 in the national evaluation of final warning identified the range of rehabilitative programmes that were offered across the country. Despite that the final warning is intended as a national provision; findings from the evaluation indicate that it is premature to describe its implementation as uniform (Holdaway and Desborough 2004).

It is our view that this paper contributes further insight by providing an understanding of the process through examination of the experiences of the key participants involved.  The government clearly has attempted to replace inconsistent police cautioning practice with a more reliable and robust system in anticipation of sending an unfailing message to young offenders that they can no longer be ‘let off’.   New Labours declared intention for those involved in the system was to unite practice cultures footed on a common emphasis of early intervention.   In realising government expectations we wanted to examine how far the reform had conquered the disparities in previous caution practice and whether it had enhanced partnership working between the police and youth justice. We also wanted to examine the impact of the reform on the young people involved. It is our contention that final warning has not ironed out many of the inconsistencies associated with the delivery of the previous system nor has it enhanced joint working and the provision of focused early intervention. 

Cautioning, the Final Warning Reform and our Research Study

The issuing of informal warnings and cautions as distinct from formal prosecution is a long established practice in relation to youth offending (Goldson, 2000).   The use of the informal police caution in diverting offenders from court dates back to the beginning of professional policing founded upon the need for a ‘common sense’ approach when deciding when to intervene in an incident, because the volume of incidents that can be regarded as breaches of the law always outstrip any capacity to be able to deal with them.   A manual for police constables written by Sir Henry Hawkins, Her Majesty’s Judge in 1893 advised:

The first record of a police warning was in 1833, but it was not until 1853 that official policy was altered to encourage informal warnings for minor offences (Steer, 1970).   The caution system was a response to evidence that the formal involvement of young people within the criminal justice system served neither the interests of the public or young people that was made statute in the Children and Young Peoples Act 1969.  Throughout the 1980s the use of the police caution to divert young offenders from the court was repeatedly affirmed and by the 1990s the effectiveness of this orthodoxy was evident as the numbers of young people in court and in custody had reduced dramatically (Jones, 1984).   Throughout, it has been accepted that this diversionary tactic is based on an acknowledgement that youth crime is a transitory affair for most young people and desistence comes with age and responsibility.

However cautioning was not without its critics.  Disparities in cautioning practices between police forces were first observed by McClintock and Avison (1968).  Their analysis concluded that variation in rates of cautioning existed nationally across the 124 police forces and highlighted considerable variation between offence types and between adults and juveniles (1968, pp.208-210).  Laycock and Tarling, 1985 noted that juvenile cautions were also linked to the type of crime and the proportion of first time offenders in the police force area concerned.  According to Campbell, 1997 the demographic features of different police areas, local sentencing trends, the extraneous factors associated with criminal activity and the level of police commitment to inter-agency working all had at some time impacted upon caution practice (see also Bottomly and Pease 1986, p.60). Yet whilst the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure (1981) recommended a reduction in caution disparities in order to secure efficiency, fairness and accountability in criminal justice, as did numerous Home Office guidelines, cautionary practice remained inconsistent (see for example, Smith and Gray, 1983; Evans and Wilkinson, 1990).   Few research studies attempted to ‘make sense’ of police caution practice and what research literature exists assumes that cautionary choices are usually the determinants of individual police officer decisions  (Saunders and Young 2000), best understood as police unfettered discretion (Saunders, 1988).   

Despite the inherent problems with police cautioning New Labour’s attempts to modify the practice with juveniles must be understood within the change in political mood during the 1990s that favoured increasingly actuarial and punitive responses to young offenders (Bottoms, 1995; Morgan and Newburn, 2007).   A priority for the newly elected Labour government was the reform of the youth justice system influenced by the Audit Commission’s report Misspent Youth (1996;1998) that argued that repeat cautions were ineffective, did nothing to support young people to take responsibility for their actions, and offered little to prevent their further offending (see Morgan and Newburn 2007).  The caution system was further criticised (Straw and Michael, 1996) in the White Paper, No More Excuses (Home Office, 1997) as a system that was ‘feckless’ in its approach and tantamount to a number of young people feeling that they can offend without any recourse to the law. 

Section 66 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 replaced juvenile cautions with the reprimand and final warning scheme restricting the number of times the police can divert young offenders from the court.   The scheme targets young offenders aged 10 to 17 where sufficient evidence exists to realistically convict them in court.   The young offender must make a clear and reliable admission to all elements of the offence, have not been previously convicted in court, and it must be deemed not in the public interest to pursue a prosecution.   Home Office guidelines 2000 stipulate that a reprimand is intended for a first offence, and the final warning is reserved for second time offenders, or those who have committed a first offence that is more serious than that which requires a reprimand but not so serious that a charge must result.   As the change in nomenclature implies, a part from exceptional circumstances there can be only one final warning and any subsequent offences are dealt with by the court (Morgan and Newburn, 2007).

Final warning guidelines (Home Office, 2000) suggest that inspectors adhere to an offence gravity matrix to guide their decision making.   A gravity score of 1 to 3 should usually lead to a reprimand, final warning, or a charge.   A score of 4 recommends that the young person is charged.   A delineating factor between the final warning and the juvenile caution is the statutory requirement of the Youth Offending Team to provide a programme of rehabilitative intervention after the warning.   Commonly referred to as the change programme, its purpose is to address the factors that contributed to the offence and to increase the offender’s awareness of the harm caused by their crime (Home Office 1997, para 5.4).   The content of the programme and the professional practice of the YOT officer are thought to encourage and influence constructive outcomes (see Holdaway et al, 2001; Ros and Burnett, 2001). 

However, it has been noted that programmes range from sessions lasting one hour to those lasting over 12 hours depending upon the YOT area the young person resides (see also Holdaway and Desborough, 2004).   This part of the final warning is voluntary. However failure to comply can nevertheless be cited in court should the young person face prosecution for a subsequent offence.

As pertinent as the insights from the research to date are, few studies have attempted to explore the ways in which the police and YOTs interpret and operationalise the final warning legislation and of how young people understand and experience it.   Much of the research that has been carried out has been quantitative or limited in scope. As a result, during 2000 we began a study with the aim of examining the development, implementation and operation of a final warning initiative in a metropolitan city in northern England.   The research adopted a critical approach and utilised a qualitative methodology designed to capture and expose a wide range of behaviours and interactions, with semi-structured interviews being carried out with police officers, YOT workers, key partnership stakeholders and young people, as well as structured observation of final warning surgeries delivered across the force area.   The fieldwork was undertaken between January 2001 and March 2002.  Interviews took place with twenty young offenders who had received a warning and volunteered for YOT intervention.   Fifteen police inspectors responsible for administering warnings were interviewed, as were the three YOT staff responsible for the management of the YOT and the delivery of the final warning intervention.   Observations of six final warning surgeries in three police command areas were carried out, as were observations of six YOT home assessments.   Two days shadowing the police provided evidence of the arrest of young people and the police interrogation prior to the administration of the warning.

Police Decision Making in Final Warnings

It is well acknowledged that the practice of police cautioning involved officers interpreting situations and using their discretion in making decisions about the appropriate application of a legal sanction (Fielding, 1995; Holdaway, 1989; Waddington, 1999; Chan, 1996; Campbell, 1997).   The practice of cautioning was informed by a police officers understanding of the offender and the context of the offence. Officers were likely to draw upon their ‘craft skills’ (Reiner 2000) gained through experience and training when approaching any given situation.   Whilst this may have produced inconsistencies in application (Laycock and Tarling (1985; Giller and Tutt, 1987), for many it was an important consequence of approaching each caution situation and responding accordingly (Campell, 1997).   

At the time of carrying out our research, final warnings were administered and delivered on Saturday afternoons to young people (with their parent or guardian in attendance) in police stations across the research site (it is worth noting that the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 removed the requirement that final warnings had to be administered within the police station).   Before the delivery of a final warning, police inspectors considered the information regarding the circumstances surrounding the offence, the young persons conduct and any previous cautions or convictions.  With the implementation of the final warning guidelines laid down by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) (Home Office, 2000) it was thought that restriction of police working rules would ultimately impact on more consistent messages sent to young offenders that this was their last chance.   The aim of the guidelines is to promote consistency in approach and application. The following comment from one inspector in our research articulates well the purported intention of the guidelines, even though his own language continues to talk about the caution:

However Inspectors retain discretion to alter the gravity of the offence one point either way (Home Office 1999a, Annex C).   A score of 1 is used for very minor offences such as drunk and disorderly and a score of 2 is for offences such as common assault or possession of a class B or C drug.   The majority of offences are categorised as either 3 or 4 (Kemp and Gelsthorpe, 2003).   For instance, burglary of non dwelling property may well receive a 3 whilst a dwelling houses a score of 4.   With a score of 2 for a first offence the recommendation is a reprimand; a score of 3 indicates a warning for a first offence.   A score of 4 must be charged.

Although it is suggested that the structured national gravity scores helps remove the potential for inconsistency in the delivery of final warning our data suggests that a range of different problems emerge.   Most interestingly, our data suggests that the guidance did not reduce discretionary practices and moreover we would argue that discretionary practices informed much of the final warning process.  Less than half of the inspectors adhered to the matrix guideline with the remainder drawing upon their own judgement of whether they thought the message had got across to the young person.   This was often based upon the inspector’s perception of the young person’s attitude towards them (and thus their authority) as the following quotes illustrates.

While it is understood that the final warning should be limited by guidelines, it is also acknowledged that it should be flexible enough to adapt to the circumstances of particular cases (Evans and Puech, 2001).   In ‘exceptional circumstances’ a second final warning can be issued as long as two years have elapsed since the first warning.   One inspector applied this in the following circumstance:

Issuing a second final warning ensures that the young offender avoids the court and the likelihood of a criminal conviction which in this case may thwart an army career. It also circumvents the error of failing to present the young person in court within the thirty six day guideline and thus protects “police interests” (Rock, 1973).   

Final warnings are recorded on the Police National Computer (PNC) and may be cited in court should an offender later be convicted.  In this sense they are de-facto sentences and carry the potential for actual low-level miscarriages of justice (Bell, 1997) when some police officers charge young people using non legal frameworks as one inspector pointed out:  

Our findings from police interviews suggest that the reform is largely an interpretative exercise that remains a police province.   This is further evidenced in the following transcript of the police interview which young people must endure before the practice can take effect:

Traditionally diversionary processes have a penchant to sidetrack attention from the police interview (see Pratt 1986; Evans, 1993) and ignored in the literature is that this tradition is the only environment for examining the evidence against young people who go on to confess to their crime in return for a reprimand or final warning.   We raise two points that have clear concerns for the interests of young people.  Firstly, the officer informs the suspect that he has witnesses to the assault yet he fails to reveal their identity.   Tactical police interviews (Irwing and McKenzie, 1989), commonly overstate the number of witnesses, or the victim’s evidence to encourage the suspect to believe that sufficient evidence exists to secure a conviction and whilst not illegal, Evans 1993 found that techniques of this nature were far ore likely to entrap juveniles into a confession.   Secondly, there are doubts about whether the young person makes a ‘clear and reliable admission to all elements of the offence’ (Home office, 2000 para 4) in which it is quite common for officers to draw upon ‘police investigative epistemology’ (Innes 2003, p.684) in preference to the young persons version of the event.  Whilst this is not to say that guilt is wrongly assumed, placing pressure on young people to accept a final warning when there are reservations about evidence, a clear confession, and no level of informed consent (Gillespie, 2005) questions whether the legal rights of young people are sufficiently protected.  We argue that the concentration of power in the hands of the police was a major weakness of the old caution system yet police discretion at ‘street level’ and at the level of administration remains a key feature in our study that is at odds with the anticipated uniformity in practice  and the messages it sends to young offenders.

Young People Taking Responsibility

Contemporary youth justice interventions have been developed with the intention of making young offenders take responsibility and to face up to the consequences of their criminal and anti-social behaviour (Warner, 1999).  This focus and vision has been shaped by contemporary political discourses surrounding youth crime in which risk and responsibility are golden threads running throughout New Labour’s administration, including the recently announced Respect Agenda (Home Office 2006).   The delivery of final warning is premised on sending clear messages to young people about their behaviour and the consequence if they continue.    The purpose of the surgery was to remind young people of the consequences of further offending and that this is their last chance, and that any further offences will be dealt with by the court (Brownlee, 1998; Bell, 1997).  We were therefore also interested in exploring young people’s reflections on ‘owning up to the crime’ as part of the final warning process.  In order to explore this we were interested in young people’s experiences of the police interview and the delivery of the final warning.

Two of the young people in our sample receiving final warnings for debut offences admitted the crime at the first opportunity, while a further four reported owning up “to get it over with”.   Similar findings were reported by Holdaway 2001, Gelsthorpe and Kemp 2003, and Hoyle, Young and Hill 2002.   The majority of our sample, however, reported assessing the weight of police evidence against them before admitting responsibility, as the following quotations show:

or, particularly in the case of those young people more experienced in dealing with the police, the process of owning up to crime was bound up with their own interpretations of guilt and responsibility.  Many of the young people reported continuously denying their involvement during interviews with the police, or at least neutralising their involvement (Matza 1969).   Blocking out information about a wrongdoing or denying and neutralising the consequences is a strategy that many of the young people we interviewed used in order to deny their involvement, contextualise their actions or direct blame onto others.   The following quotes illustrate this well:

New Labour has come to believe that it is essential to intervene early in young offenders lives (Home Office Consultation Document 1997, para, 4), and underpinned by notions of ‘responsibilisation’ (Muncie, 1997, Goldson, 1999; 2000), the final warning seeks to actively engage young people in their own risk management and volunteering for a programme of intervention is thought to be important in the “moral training of young people” (Hannah-Moffat, 1999).   Conversely, the majority of young offenders in our sample volunteered because of insistence from parents and not of their own volition:

When added with the fact that young people appear to have an in built disinclination to face up to the consequences of their behaviour (Hannah-Moffat, 1999), sanctions promoting responsibilisation through legislation appear to have little impact on young people which on a broader level may indicate that young people cannot be made to conform.   

Final Warning, Young People and Intervention

Intervention in the form of a series of structured meetings and activities is seen as an important aspect of the Final Warning programme.   Intervention is not compulsory but rather it is the outcome of an assessment made by the YOT officer after the warning has been delivered to the young person. The assessment is usually made at a home visit and the interventions available included, in our research site, a one off  meeting between the YOT officer and the young person through to more focused intervention on drug and alcohol misuse that lasted between one and three weeks.   Occasionally contact with the young person was protracted if the YOT officer felt the family was in greater need of welfare provision.   The purpose of intervention is to develop the strand of responsibility running through the final warning reform, together with enhancing the provision of support and solution focused activities to young people and their families with the aim to “address the causes of offending and so reduce the risk of further crime” (Home Office, 1997a, pp10-12 (para 5))

However, our research identified both inconsistencies in the assessment of need associated with the interventions and in the delivery of the interventions themselves.  Quantitative data at the time of our study suggested an increase in reconviction rates following the final warning, and only 14 per cent of young offenders issued final warnings were subject to any form of intervention during this period.   To a large extent this was a consequence of the way in which the YOT officers approached the assessment of need and risk, and of their perception as to the value of the intervention, as the following commentary illustrates.   

Final warning interventions are informed by the ASSET which at the time of the study contained over 200 items in thirteen sections.   At the time of our study sections required information about the young persons living arrangements, family history, education, neighbourhood and lifestyle and questions on schooling requires information on truancy, exclusion, suspension, bullying and relationships with teachers and pupils.   Taking approximately two hours to complete, this aroused strong opinion from final warning officers in our study, as the following quote from one of the officers identifies:

Attempts by the YOT manager to introduce evidence based practice resulted in an increasing demand for the team to reach IT proficiency in which it has been noted that social workers often depart from new structured procedures owing to the demands of their role (Frazer, 2004) as the following comment reveals:

The limited nature of final warning intervention was certainly a consequence of the professional values of the final warning workers.  It is apparent from our findings that formulaic guidelines were perceived by the final warning officers as obstructing their professional discretion and, in order to maintain their own professional integrity, they applied their own working rules, shaped by their social work values, to approach and prioritise the welfare needs of young people, even though they recognised that youth justice is now packaged politically in much more interventionist, risk orientated, actuarial and punitive terms.  The following quotation taken from interview with one of the final warning officers illustrates this point well. 

Nevertheless, the ‘new’ youth justice framework demands acceptance of early and rapid intervention through the penal system (Home Office, 1997) in which it is anticipated that partnership working will produce a common practice culture (Home Office 1998, para.2).   Far from these aims there appeared a ‘turf war’ (Bailey and Williams, 2000) between final warning officers and police inspectors:

Officers were also concerned that statutory intervention will lead to a greater criminalisation, as the two quotes below demonstrate:

And this was a view shared by the YOT manger:

In relation to partnership working, Crawford 1994 points out that the reality of partnership working is often based upon conflicts over cultural traditions and working practices between the actors which was further evidenced elsewhere in our YOT.  The YOT had failed to secure a police officer onto the team at the implementation stage and inspectors made it apparent that victim details would not be divulged to final warning officers.   This prohibited any work with victims taking place that was considered at best as an indication of the low priority police give to this work and at worst police attempts to colonise the warning process:

In spite of the fact that government legislation has placed statutory emphasis upon partnership working (Crime and Disorder Act 1998 sec33) police inertia was evident.   Many inspectors viewed final warning as exclusively a police matter which is in contrast to findings by others that confirm a greater police dedication to the reform (Kemp and Gelsthorpe, 2002; Burnett and Ros, 2001, Holdaway et al 2001).   

Discussion and Summary

This paper is based on interviews with police inspectors, final warning officers and young people supplemented by observations of the settings within which final warnings were delivered in a large metropolitan city in northern England.   As we have detailed, the final warning reform attempts to promote consistency in delivery and approach as well as sending out clear messages to young people about the consequences of reoffending.  It is also predicated upon a philosophy that promotes earlier and a greater degree of consistency in the provision of rehabilitative intervention.  However, our findings suggest that far from enhancing consistency in process and delivery, discretionary decision making at each stage of the reform together with competing organisational philosophies and practices promotes a picture that is at least a challenge to both the government’s agenda and the claims made by the Youth Justice Board of the impact of final warning.  The final warning reform in our study did little to reduce the disparities, or promote the consistency in police and YOT decision making with young offenders.  Moreover, our findings also question the likelihood of final warning to promote enhanced responsibility in the young people that are at the receiving end of it through the provision of rehabilitative programmes. 

Our research identified a divergence of understanding and approach to final warning and limited attention to police evidence during the interview process and the administering of the final warning.  The sentencing matrix (Home Office Guidance for Police Officers Issuing Final Warnings, 2000) allows latitude to aggravate or mitigate the seriousness of the offence and a repertoire of police inconsistencies was evident.   Although policy options for improving police decision-making through Home Office standing orders effectively strengthens the legal application there is no mechanism to ensure that these are applied.   Indeed, at the local level at least, there is a need for a provision to internally review decision making in pre court disposals which in turn may minimise the influence of other discriminatory factors.  The final warning  has greater consequences for young people over and above that of the juvenile caution because the warning is imposed on young people due to what Gillespie calls “a silence by statute”  (Gillespie, 2005 p.1006) that no longer requires  young people’s consent to the warning (unlike the juvenile caution and is still a requirement for adult cautions).  This is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.   Although diversion is worthy and in accordance with both the Beijing Riles and UNCRC that recommends young people should be diverted from criminal justice, our findings have shown that a total police administrative process defies the principal of due process (see Gillespie, 2005) on a number of counts and revisits the prohibiting of fairness that was evident in police caution practice.   Despite the final warning reform attempting to promote greater consistency in police decision making, there is no judicial review of final warnings (Bell, 1997), no direct lines of police accountability and no means of redress through the court. 

A second finding of our research is that there was little evidence to suggest that final warning was a particularly appropriate vehicle through which greater self responsibility could be promoted. The majority of our sample of young people viewed final warning as a rite of passage that did little to spark their own sense of responsibility, and in many cases, that of the ‘responsible adult’ accompanying them to the surgery.  Their use of neutralisation techniques  together with their moral outrage towards the new intervention posed difficult questions about the ability of the final warning reform to prevent youth crime by ‘nipping it in the bud’ (Straw and Michael, 1996).  Indeed, our findings strike at the heart of the underlying ideology of new youth justice and the assumption that resource limited final warning intervention can promote effective opportunities for young people to take responsibility, to stop reoffending and to turn their lives around.   

Furthermore, the potential of the final warning to promote responsibility was marred by the failure of the YOT to promote enhanced rehabilitative intervention following the delivery of the warning itself.  Rather than receiving a complementary programme of rehabilitative intervention following the delivery of the final warning at the police surgery, the young people in our study were unlikely to be offered further support.   This is despite non compliance being viewed as tantamount to a ‘moral failure’ (Gray 2005 p.940) with the potential for harsher consequences because it can be stated in court should the young offender commit a further offence.  The decision not to engage young people in further intervention appeared to be based upon the final warning officers own conclusion of the worth of rehabilitative intervention, a view informed by their own values and philosophies that often ran counter to that of New Labours and the YJBs view of the reform.  Indeed, despite the  final warning reform involving both the delivery of a warning and subsequent rehabilitative intervention, the delivery of the warning in our study was perceived both by the police inspectors and by the final warning officers as paramount to the intervention. 

Our findings suggest that the lack of engagement with young offenders following the delivery of the final warning surgery may be linked to organisational factors that permeated the management, philosophy and practice of the YOT, and whose roots can be found in pre-1998 youth justice.  Firstly, it can be suggested that a philosophy of limited intervention underpinned the final warning officer’s approaches to practice.  In our study the YOT was core staffed by social workers who defined the content of intervention and the key managerial positions continued to be held by those previously social work trained.   Although there has been considerable investment in debating the social work knowledge base of practitioners in terms of developing good practice, little consideration has been given to social work culture (Osmond and O’Conner, 2004), or how social work ‘ethic’ transforms into practice in youth justice.   In looking at similar cultures probation staff working with police in multi-agency panels have shown the tendency for probation officers to transgress their professional culture and ‘fail to protect the rights of the offender’ (McKnight 1998 p.33) whereas 20 years ago there was more concern about probation officers ‘over identification’ (Roberts, 1997 p.20) with offenders.   They have also adopted identities and values that are emerged in a common grey culture of performance management and quantitative assessment (Smith, 1995; Smith, Paylor and Mitchell,1993) and despite that police and probation officers hold competing cultures they are able to work well together (Maguire et al, 2001).  In our study the professional cultures coupled with training and learning continued to inform the delivery of practice at the local level.

Second, it can be suggested that despite talk of joined up working, our study continued to suggest distinctiveness in terms of roles and functions and separateness in terms of final warning delivery. The delivery of the warning itself remained the preserve of the police and the assessment of the young person and delivery of the rehabilitative intervention the preserve of the YOT. Whilst there was little duplication of practice (Home Office, 1997), the working methods did little to overcome the established tensions that have been known to exist between diverse organisational cultures working together (Crawford, 1997).  The YOT continued to represent a former social services youth justice system that managed all young offenders in local teams with little interaction and poor communication with other agencies (see Senior and Boden, 2006). Third, our study demonstrated the difficulty of delivering final warning with limited resources. The YOT continued to experience staffing difficulties throughout the study period, a problem common in many areas at the time of fieldwork owing to the government’s enthusiasm for initiatives with young people such as Surestart and Connexions that left organisations vying for staff (Holdaway et al, 2001).   Our YOT was no exception, and the failure to recruit a second final warning officer for a period of time created further tension and an increasing workload for the existing officer. Two months into the initiative the officer took sickness leave that precluded any intervention taking place during this time.

Although limited in its scope and application as a consequence of being undertaken during the early stages of the development of final warning in one YOT area only, our findings are pertinent as a consequence of their qualitative richness. Certainly they raise important issues  concerning the ability of youth justice reforms to enhance the consistency in delivery of youth interventions and thus the lives of the young people involved. In particular we would suggest that the findings reported here question the ability of legislative reform alone to promote greater consistency of approach.  Our findings sit neatly alongside research on final warning carried out at national and local levels (Holdaway and Desborough 2004; Evans and Puech, 2001, Hine and Celnick, 2001, Jennings, 2002) and the work of other commentators on the final warning reform (Bateman, 2003; Gillespie, 2005; Dingwall and Koffman, 2006) in highlighting the need for further research and critical commentary. In particular we would suggest that our findings reveal the need for further qualitative research on three aspects of final warning and point towards the need for a review of the legal implantation of the reform. These are:

• First, there is an urgent need to engage in detailed qualitative research on the delivery of final warning and particularly on the perceptions, actions and philosophies of those engaged in its delivery, namely the police and final warning officers.  Of particular importance here are the factors that inform the delivery of the final warning reform and of how it can enhance responsibility amongst recipients.

• Second, there is a need for research to examine the working relationship between the police and YOTs and to evaluate the consequences it has for reducing reoffending amongst those on the receiving end of it.

• Third there is an urgent need to place young people at centre stage of any research on final warning  in order to explore with them the nature and impact of the reform and its consequences.  Our research has suggested that final warning has the potential to bring young people into the formal youth justice arena whilst at the same time continuing to be delivered inconsistently and without due regard to the promotion of desistence through intervention and support. 

• Finally and importantly a police control of the legal system of final warnings signifies a need to make the final warning more compliant with human rights and legal safeguards to ensure there is sufficient evidence to issue the disposal that can only be brought about with consultation with the CPS.

Research findings into the effectiveness of final warning are incomplete without an understanding of the processes and practices associated with the implementation of the reform together with analysis of the experiences of the key participants involved.  It is only by doing so that final warning can move from being another youth justice intervention to one that promotes and values young people as the future of tomorrow consistently and appropriately. 

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