Roger Smith is Professor of Social Work at Durham University. His career has spanned practice, policy development, and research and education, and in all these roles he has had extensive experience of the youth justice. As a practitioner, he worked in the pioneering diversion scheme in Northamptonshire; in his policy role with The Children’s Society, he contributed to a series of campaigns to end the use of penal custody for children; and as an academic, he has researched and written widely on the subject of the youth justice system, youth justice practice, and models of intervention which really do deliver justice for young people.