A specific case is examined in which the Howard League for Penal Reform successfully challenged the legality of the Home Secretary’s policy on statutory child protection duties towards children held in young offender institutions. The article describes the changing strategies employed by the League, which had enjoyed a long history of using persuasion and influence to direct penal reform. In fact, the League was once characterized as the model insider organization among public interested groups in the United Kingdom. The focus of the analysis rests on contrasting the typical “persuasion and influence” strategy against the recent turn to litigation. One reason that persuasion and influence may no longer be as effective as litigation lies in the changing relationships between politicians, experts, and the public over matters of penal policy and practice. A different era has been ushered in, in which policy and law are based on a populist style versus the past era of elitist rule, in which powerful members of society whispered into the ears of policymakers and leaders. Now that litigation seems the most efficient strategy to evoke penal reform, the ability of the judicial review process to further the goals of penal reform is considered. Judicial review is characterized as an effective means through which to protect prisoner’s rights. The final analysis contends that legal actions are an effective means through which penal policy may be contested in a constantly changing legal arena. Notes, references