Rugby Union, Positive Youth Development, and Criminal Justice

This chapter explores the Kicking Crime Into Touch (KCIT) project, which used rugby union to support justice-involved young men in the community youth justice context. KCIT was a two-year funded rugby union intervention delivered collaboratively by academics and practitioners which sought to utilise rugby union as a mechanism for Positive Youth Development (PYD) with young men serving Intensive Supervision and Surveillance orders (ISS). The chapter uses theories of masculinity to analyse rugby as a tool for justice-involved young men. In turn, it explores how many of the practices, codes, and values inherent in the traditionally ‘manly sport’ of rugby union had the potential to reinforce violence and support notions of hyper-masculinity. Moreover, the chapter considers how the middle-class preserve of rugby union posed a threat to the masculine identities of participants and had the potential to reignite feelings of trauma and vulnerability.