Citation

Prior D, Mason P. Youth Justice 2010; 10(3): 211-226.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, National Association for Youth Justice, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1473225410381688

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The skills and knowledge required by practitioners to develop relationships with young offenders that will engage and sustain them in intervention programmes is a core theme of the ‘effective practice’ literature. Yet this question of how to secure young people’s engagement is scarcely examined in research on interventions with young offenders, despite an apparent preoccupation with ‘what works’. The article discusses this disjuncture between the research and practice literatures, arguing that prevailing orthodoxies regarding what constitutes valid research evidence prevent certain questions about what works and how from being studied. It is suggested that both the practice literature and alternative research methodologies can provide rigorous evidence in response to these questions.