Youth courts were introduced because we believed that doing so was right as part of the process of dealing with the problem of persistent offenders, particularly 16 and 17-year-old offenders.When I have visited projects related to the youth courts and discussed issues with people who work in them, I have been told that, far from being in direct contradiction to children's hearings, the youth court model has effectively incorporated some of the best qualities of children's hearings in getting to the root of problems, solving them and dealing with the issues in young people's lives...