There have been many deficiencies in the care and treatment of young offenders in Ireland over past decades, the Chief Justice, John Murray, will tell a conference in Scotland today.
Addressing the seminar Alternatives to Prison, organised by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Mr Justice Murray will suggest that in the area of youth and criminal justice, the treatment of young offenders can either divert them towards a more positive path or confirm them in the downward spiral of future criminal behaviour.
"In Ireland, the need to avoid the second scenario has, in recent times, been given a priority it has not heretofore enjoyed," he will argue.
Moreover, an important measure of any society is how it cares for its children. "In this respect it is vital that young offenders do not automatically enter the criminal justice system for errant behaviour, and that detention is used as a last resort," he will contend.
"The care and treatment of young offenders over past decades has suffered from many deficiencies, in spite of the good intentions of many professionals involved in the system, due in many respects to ad hoc and inadequate adaptations of the criminal justice system to rapid changes in society, which is such a marked feature of the contemporary world."
However, the chief justice will argue that in the past decade significant advances have been made in developing strategies designed to ensure that children are dealt with in a manner appropriate to their needs and to minimise or prevent their criminalisation.
These advances include the Children's Act, 2001, policy initiatives such as the new Young Persons Probation Service, pilot schemes such as the Drug Court and court sentencing policies based on the notion of distributive justice.
Other participants at the conference include the governor of Mountjoy Prison, John Lonergan, and Claire Hamilton, lecturer in criminology at Dublin Institute of Technology.