Youth Crime And Youth Justice

Building upon the success of the first edition, this second - and substantially revised - edition of Youth Crime and Justice comprises a range of cutting-edge contributions from leading national and international researchers. The book: Situates youth crime and youth justice within historical and social-structural contexts; Critically examines policy and practice trends and their relation to knowledge and ‘evidence’; and Presents a forward looking vision of a rights compliant youth justice with integrity. An authoritative and accessible book, Youth Crime and Justice (2nd ed) provides a coherent, comprehensive and fully up-to-date analysis of contemporary developments and debates. A must for researchers, teachers, students and practitioners.

The Second Edition of this best-selling text provides a fully revised and up-to-date critical analysis of a wide range of issues surrounding young people, disorder and crime. How and why have certain aspects of young people's behaviour come to be perceived as 'anti-social' and 'criminal'? Are young people now more of a threat than ever before? How can we make sense of New Labour's youth justice reforms? Is the youth justice system soft on crime? Are young people more in need of protection than disciplinary punishment? To develop a comprehensive criminology of youth the book deliberately moves.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act replaces the Young Offenders Act to provide the legislative framework for a fairer & more effective youth justice system.

This report presents the findings from the first national, representative survey of public attitudes to youth crime and youth justice in England and Wales. The findings illustrate the complex and multilayered nature of public opinion on this topic. They show that the public has a more pessimistic view of youth crime than is justified by official crime statistics. While most people say that they want the youth justice system to be tougher on young offenders, many are supportive of restorative or rehabilitative approaches when presented with detail on specific cases. Youth crime and youth justice is essential reading for academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in the fields of criminal justice, criminology, social policy, social work and probation.

In Responding to Youth Crime in Canada, Anthony Doob and Carla Cesaroni describe how Canada has been responding to youth crime in the context of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which came into force on April 1, 2003. The authors describe what is known about Canadian youth crime, and the operation of the youth justice system in the context of the changes in the law that are taking place. The authors posit that the youth justice system has a relatively modest impact on youth crime. In order to respond intelligently to it and to evaluate the response of the state, two sets of information must be understood. First, society must try to understand what 'youth crime' looks like in Canada. Second, in order to understand - and evaluate - the changes that are being made in youth justice legislation in Canada, a clear understanding of the manner in which the youth justice system currently operates is necessary. Unlike those who look to the youth justice system to solve the problem of youth crime, the authors suggest that we should look to the youth justice system to respond appropriately to the realities of what constitutes youth crime and look elsewhere to address how one might affect the level of youth crime in our society.

There is an impasse in current thinking about youth crime and justice, represented by punitive and harmful practices, and liberal objections to these processes on the other, based predominantly on arguments for ‘rehabilitation’. This book aims to arrive at an alternative strategy for resolving the tensions between young people – especially those on and beyond the margins – and the social world which frames their lives. The book is split into three sections: Part 1 focuses on young people, their attitudes and behaviour; Part 2 considers the way in which their behaviour is constructed as criminal and then addressed; Part 3 considers the limitations of current practices and potential alternatives. Within this broad framework, the differentiated and contested nature of young people’s experiences and our (and their) ideas of ‘youth’ can be counterposed to prevailing one-sided and often discriminatory assumptions about them; in order then to open up questions about the nature and purposes of the youth justice system, and to introduce some possibilities for reconstructing it according to fundamental principles of rights, welfare and social justice. Doing Justice to Young People will be essential reading for anybody working in or studying youth crime and youth justice.