The emergence of a distinct juvenile justice system in England and Wales dates from the early part of the 20th century and was institutionalized by the 1908 Children Act. A welfare perspective flourished in the 1960s, but the 1970s brought the reinstatement of the Conservative Party and a more punitive perspective that increased the use of custody. However, the idea of diversion persisted, so that the 1970s experienced a curious mixture of increasing reliance on both custodial sentences and police warnings. Traditional criminal justice values, policies, and practices were explicitly revived in the 1980s; policies aimed to reassert the virtue and necessity of authority, order, and discipline. Developments in the 1990s reveal that the arguments clearly no longer focus on welfare, crime control, or justice and cannot be aligned with the political right or left. The 1992 election revealed little difference in the political parties' respective responses to crime and the conception of justice. Thus, the current model can be considered a corporative model. The government has recently announced plans to introduce boot camps and indicate that concerns about contemporary youth cannot be considered on their surface, because they may signify concerns about society and social order. Figures, tables, and 78 references