Girls of colour in the youth justice system: an intersectional exploration

The youth justice experiences of girls and young women of colour have been consistently overlooked in UK research and policy, rendering them an invisible population within a punitive system. This research uses an intersectional lens to explore the youth justice experiences of eight girls of colour in England through in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews, capturing their views on youth justice services, courts and the police. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were also used to examine the perspectives of 20 youth justice professionals in relation to working with girls of colour and broader issues of race and gender in the youth justice system. This research begins to overcome the existing knowledge gap by making visible the youth justice experiences of girls and young women of colour and examining how they are perceived by the professionals tasked with both their support and their punishment.

My findings reveal a persistent narrative of injustice and significant distrust of the police from girls and young women, including experiences of serious violence and misconduct at the hands of police officers. Meanwhile, many professional participants remained unaware of the young women’s experiences and subscribed to a colourblind narrative which obscured structural and systemic inequalities. A limited group of professional participants exhibited a more intersectional approach, aiming to directly address issues of race and gender in their working relationships with young people.

The research concludes that significant updates to policy and practice are needed to bring the youth justice experiences of girls and young women of colour to the fore. Finally, this thesis proposes that intersectionality can be used as a tool within youth justice work to foster greater awareness of structural inequalities and reflection on positionality in the relationship between youth justice professionals and young people.