The supervised adolescent: sharing the task with parents

In England and Wales the main non-custodial sentences available today to the Juvenile Court dealing with young offenders under the age of 17 are Care Orders, Supervision Orders and Attendance Centre Orders. A Supervision Order is more likely to be chosen by the Court if the circumstances of the offence can be reasonably evidenced as a reaction to internal or external factors which have distorted the normal development of the young offender. However, the value of Supervision Orders has come under increasing criticism. It is often seen as a “soft option”, and harsher sentences are therefore being advocated by some sections of society. This paper focuses on an approach devised to make Supervision Orders more effective. Evidence from meetings with parents shows that Supervision which is not shared as a co-operative task with parents is reduced to a perfunctory gesture.