The defining feature of youth justice in Britain during the 1980's was de-escalation at virtually every stage of processing. The police became increasingly proactive in using the least formal means of intervention. Informal warnings were preferred to formal cautions, and wherever possible court proceedings were avoided by the use of formal cautions. With the courts receiving a much reduced but relatively more serious group of young offenders, it might have been expected that more severe sentences would be imposed. The reverse occurred, however, and the de-escalatory trend was as apparent within the court setting as at the policing stage. To a considerable extent, these de-escalatory statistical trends reflected an emerging confluence of practitioners and policymakers, especially during the latter part of the period; however, within no more than 2 years, most of the gains had been undone, and the tone and direction of juvenile justice policy had been radically transformed. This reversal in youth justice policy in England and Wales underlines the inherent vulnerability of socio-liberal patterns in criminal policy. Any sign of leniency and humaneness in criminal justice processing is vulnerable to attack from political parties attempting to replace those in power. There is an apparent willingness by the public to believe that any sign of an increasing crime rate must be due to lenient criminal justice policies. 3 tables, 3 notes, and 17 references