I welcome this collection of essays on young people and the use of custody. For those, like me, who have spent most of their careers delivering services to children and young people in need, listening to them and their families, and also hearing the views and experiences of victims of crime (many of whom are children and young people themselves), there can be few more challenging subjects.

Over the past 10 years there has been a renewed focus on youth justice, with the establishment of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) in 1998 of which I was a founder member. Although, of late, it has been topical to be critical of the impact the YJB has had on the system, I simply refer the reader to the picture painted in the conclusion of this edition of the many improvements that have been delivered. It isn't perfect, and I am very aware of the serious consequences when things go wrong, but there have been some notable and worthy improvements, not only in the coordination of youth justice services and the involvement of an ever-widening range of agencies, but also in relation to the quality of care for those young people who do enter the secure establishments.

That said, there is clearly a great deal more that can be done. In my view, we need to focus seriously on reducing the numbers of youngsters entering the custodial system. As illustrated in this volume, too many young people are ending up in custody too quickly without having the benefit of alternative interventions, and many are subject to the vagaries of decision making by those responsible for sentencing. Despite the improvements in regime, there remains much more to be done in creating the ‘therapeutic’ conditions that are known to be effective in working with young people who, in the vast majority of cases, have been exposed to a multitude of disadvantages and where, in many instances, mainstream services have simply failed to respond or meet their needs.

This volume has made me think even harder about what I can contribute to the debate, including discussions about the need to raise the age of criminal responsibility and thus divert many children and young people from the criminal justice system into more appropriate services designed to focus specifically on their needs and behaviours.