13 July 2009

A New Start: Young adults in the criminal justice system – Executive summary

Young adults

Open report

Are there fairer more effective ways to treat young adults in the criminal justice system? This report calls for police officers to triage young people into diversion schemes, replace short custodial sentences with community sentences, and for young adults in custody to be separate from adult prisoners and for court-decision making to consider maturity when holding young adults to account.

Publisher: T2A

April 2026
Joint Enterprise: A view over time

The report looks at two decades of data on joint enterprise, finding a disproportionate impact on young adults and persistent racial disparities.

September 2025
From exploited to exploiter?

This report looks at how to prevent the unjust criminalisation of victims of child criminal exploitation in the transition to adulthood.

Criminal Justice, young adults
Smaller but tougher: How the criminal justice system is processing young adults

This Centre for Crime and Justice Studies report looks at harsher outcomes experienced by young adults in the criminal justice system over time.