Criminological knowledge and the politics of impact: Implications for researching juvenile justice

Abstract

Th is chapter explores the politics of engaging in a research agenda aimed at maximising the impact of criminological knowledge on policy and practice. It is based on a case study of Scottish penal developments, with specifi c reference to the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, a longitudinal programme of research which has had demonstrable infl uence on the nature and function of Scottish juvenile justice (and beyond) (Howard League 2013).The chapter builds on an article fi rst published in the British Journal of Criminology (McAra 2016), which highlighted a major dissonance between policy discourse on youth crime in Scotland and the decision-making practices of key institutions within the juvenile and adult justice systems. In the article I concluded that, for maximum impact, criminologists needed to engage with and challenge both political and institutional practice: a multi-level approach to transformative action.