Shaping Justice Together: A New Vision for Young Adults
Annmarie Lewis, Head of Criminal Justice at the Trust, highlights what’s coming up for the T2A Transition into Adulthood campaign
If you’ve been following our work, you may have noticed a pause in updates from the criminal justice programme and T2A. But that pause wasn’t silence, it was reflection. A moment to listen, learn, and recalibrate.
Since stepping into this role last November, I’ve had the privilege of immersing myself in the legacy of T2A, while continuing the journey I’ve been on for over 30 years as a pioneer and champion in the broader justice reform movement. And in recent months, it’s become clear: we’re at a crossroads.
We’ve seen policy shifts that feel more reactive than reflective. The Sentencing Review included some welcome progressive elements, but we were disappointed that it failed to recognise young adults as a distinct group with specific needs, despite our substantive submission. This omission, alongside the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines, reflects a troubling trend, the manipulation of the ‘two-tier justice’ narrative.
For decades, under-represented groups have experienced a two-tier system in practice, a reality that has driven long-standing campaigns for racial and gender justice. The current political weaponisation of this rhetoric is not only flawed, but unsafe. It risks undermining progress, embedding regressive policies, and distorting public understanding of justice reform. We must challenge this narrative with clarity, truth, and strategy.
A Time to Rethink, Reframe and Reimagine
This isn’t about despair, it’s about direction. We’ve taken a step back to ask: What does justice look like for young adults today? And more importantly: Who gets to shape that vision?
That’s why we convened a powerful and diverse group on 30 June — people from different communities, professions, and lived experiences, each bringing their own insights and passions — for a day of deep conversation, bold imagining, and commitment to radical change.
Our workshop, Shaping Justice Together: A New Vision for Young Adults, was more than an event, it was a powerful moment of collective intention. A call to co-create a new blueprint for a justice system that sees young adults not as problems to be solved or issues to be fixed, but as people shaped by their experiences, many of whom have lived through significant harm. We aim to develop a vision that embraces the full complexity of young adult lives without diminishing it, that doesn’t ask what’s wrong with you, but rather what happened to you, and seeks to restore, not erase, the humanity of everyone involved.
Imagine a system that understands the duality of being both survivors and, at times, agents of harm. One that recognises their actions, choices and behaviours cannot be separated from the contexts they’ve lived through, often shaped by trauma, inequity, and unmet needs.
Imagine an approach that holds space for healing, accountability, and restoration, not only for young adults, but also for those impacted by their actions. One that believes growth is possible, change can happen, and reconciliation can emerge when the right care and support are in place.
Now imagine a system that not only recognises the dual nature of state and social harm — where children and young adults can be harmed by state agencies as well as by social inequality — but also begins to disrupt these cycles. Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline: the systemic pattern where disadvantaged young people, particularly from racialised communities, are pushed out of education and into the criminal justice system. And beyond that, recognising the growing reality of the prison-to-prison pipeline: the ways in which prisons themselves become criminogenic spaces that deepen harm and entrench cycles of offending, not only for young adults inside, but also for the staff working with those young adults.
Alarmingly, we are seeing increasing numbers of young staff committing offences, particularly within prison environments, and crossing the threshold from employee to prisoner themselves — caught in the very system they once served. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of the acute trauma and substantial difficulties facing the whole staff body, and a system in urgent need of transformation. Young adult staff, many of whom carry their own lived experience, need the same care, compassion, support, safety, and accountability to do this work well. Healing must be systemic, not selective. We need a system that understands justice isn’t just about those impacted by it, but also about those working within it.
This is not just a shift in language, but a shift in values, and a focus on what works. A move from harm to healing, from isolation to inclusion, from conflict to connection. One that honours young adults’ potential, rather than simply punishing their mistakes, and strengthens the communities around them, rather than further tearing them apart.
At the recent workshop we explored the map, the model, the modus operandi, and the missing pieces, and the energy in the room was electric! We’ll share key outcomes in a future blog, but for now, we’re excited to announce that the second in the series will take place this September.
This is a call to reimagine justice not as punishment, but as a pathway forward, rooted in fairness, compassion, responsibility, and renewed hope for all.
Narrative Change: From Harm to Healing
We’re not alone in this. Across the sector, funders and partners are coming together to challenge harmful rhetoric and build a shared strategy for narrative transformation. The idea of a ‘two-tier justice system’ that favours women or other disadvantaged, marginalised, and under-represented groups isn’t just misleading, it’s dangerous. It obscures the structural inequalities that have long defined our justice system, particularly for young adults from racialised and marginalised communities, including young women and girls.
We’re working closely with the Corston Independent Funders Coalition, the Harm to Healing Coalition, and UK narrative change with partner funders, to align our efforts, reduce duplication, and amplify what works. The Harm to Healing Coalition, born out of the work of Dr Patrick Williams, Temi Mwale, and the H2H Resource Group has helped set a strong narrative focus for reimagining justice through a new lens. Because the truth is there’s incredible work happening at the grassroots.
Just look at Spark Inside’s recent roundtable, which brought together young men, practitioners, and policymakers to reimagine wellbeing and racial equity in custody, building on the work of their https://www.sparkinside.org/campaign/being-well-being-equal Being Well Being Equal campaign and report. Or Daddyless Daughters, who are pioneering transformative work with girls and young women affected by family breakdown, abuse, and adversity, helping them build healthy, sustainable lives and relationships, and preventing criminal and sexual exploitation. These are just two examples of the powerful, community-rooted work that we are supporting to drive change from the ground up.
What’s Next for T2A?
Over the next year, we’re focused on four key priorities:
– Synthesising 20 years of T2A evidence into a clear, actionable vision for young adult justice, and embedding systems change across policing, prisons, probation, public affairs and public policy.
– Embedding lived and learned experience at the heart of our work through a new T2A Alliance advisory panel and group
– Advancing racial and gender justice by challenging systemic bias and centring equity in all we do
– Driving strategic communications to support the next phase of T2A and counter harmful narratives
We know the road ahead won’t be easy. But we also know that change doesn’t come from waiting; it comes from working together to drive radical reformation and bring about total transformation. Not just of systems, but of the very vision of justice itself.
What comes next doesn’t have to be a system at all, but a radically different future rooted in humanity, safety, and love.
Annmarie Lewis, July 2025
