‘They’re still children and entitled to be children': problematising the institutionalised mistrust of marginalised youth in Britain

Abstract

Developing Kelly's perspicacious deliberations on mistrust, surveillance and regulation in this journal (Journal of Youth Studies vol. 6, no. 2 (2003), pp. 165–180), this paper illustrates the pernicious consequences of the British Government's ‘Community Safety’ discourses, as effected through the imposition of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, upon marginalised young people and their families. By drawing upon and presenting extracts from our recent qualitative research with a sample of young people and their families subject to these contracts, the vacuous nature of contemporary constructs of marginalised youth as ‘dangerous Other’ is laid bare as unintelligible and deleterious to fostering any sense of inclusion and social justice in their lives.

Notes

Dr Dawn Stephen, Senior Lecturer, Criminology/Sociology and Dr Peter Squires, Reader in Criminology, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Correspondence to: Dawn Stephen, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Email: [email protected]. The authors express sincere gratitude to the young people and their families who so generously participated in this research, and to the anonymous referees who provided welcomed advice on the first draft of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dawn E. Stephen

Dr Dawn Stephen, Senior Lecturer, Criminology/Sociology and Dr Peter Squires, Reader in Criminology, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Correspondence to: Dawn Stephen, School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK. Email: [email protected]. The authors express sincere gratitude to the young people and their families who so generously participated in this research, and to the anonymous referees who provided welcomed advice on the first draft of this paper.