Helen Pidd, Josh Halliday, Maya Wolfe-Robinson, Nazia Parveen, Amy Walker, Nicole Wootton-Cane, Philip Marzouk
Children in the Dock, The Guardian
Children In The Dock is an investigation into the youth justice system in England and Wales which involved the Guardian’s Manchester team spending a month monitoring every case at Greater Manchester Youth Court. The series – which began with 18 articles and a podcast – exposed a chaotic, opaque system which fundamentally doesn’t work and fails to help some of society’s most vulnerable children. It revealed that youth cases now take 40% longer than in 2010, when the coalition government began closing half of all magistrates courts; that hundreds of children wait so long for justice that they have their 18th birthdays and end up in adult court; that care homes continue to criminalise children for petty crimes; that the proportion of BAME children in court has doubled in eight years.
“The Guardian’s investigation into youth justice in Britain was a thorough exposé of a creaking system that fails our most vulnerable children. The judges were impressed by how reporters used a variety of methods, including covering every case in one youth court for a month, to detail these failings and spark calls for a systemic review” Max Daly, Judge
Youth court system in ‘chaos’, says children’s commissioner
Children in handcuffs: a month reporting from youth in court
Revealed: hundreds of children pushed into adult courts by delays
