Provides a comparison of criminal justice and juvenile justice systems across the world, looking for points of comparison and policy variance that can lead to positive change in the United States. Contributors discuss important issues such as the relationship between political change and juvenile justice, the common labels used to unify juvenile systems in different regions and in different forms of government, the types of juvenile systems that exist and how they differ, and more. Furthermore, they use data on criminal versus juvenile justice in a wide variety of nations to create a new explanation of why separate juvenile and criminal courts are felt to be necessary. --From publisher description.

In this review, the author considers the collection by U.S.-based juvenile justice scholars on legal and policy frameworks across various international juvenile justice systems. The author analyses the conceptual discussion of the themes of each chapter. These include juvenile justice in Western Europe, “understudied systems,” and the effect of significant political change on jurisdictions. This review examines the valuable features of the collection, such as the level of statistical analysis on crime rates and modes of disposition, whilst offering additional avenues of information related to this collection. The author concludes that the collection is original and will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers, academics and students of juvenile justice, criminal justice, and criminology.

Global Perspectives on Social Issues: Juvenile Justice Systems is an attempt to characterize juvenile offenders in twenty-five nations in North America, South America, Western, and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Each chapter represents a fact sheet and contemporary report on juvenile justice systems in the eight different regions of the world.

Thoroughly updated and revised, the Second Edition of Juvenile Justice: A Social, Historical, and Legal Perspective, offers readers a comprehensive volume on how the juvenile justice system works. This book is designed to help readers understand the complexities of the present juvenile justice system by presenting a thorough examination of the social, historical, and legal context within which delinquency and juvenile justice occurs. In addition to gaining valuable knowledge on the juvenile justice process, readers will learn how the different parts of the process are interrelated, how decisions made in one case influence future cases, and the laws that direct juvenile justice policy.

Annotation By the year 2000 more than 50% of the world population will be under the age of 15 (9th UN Congress, 1995) Youth crime is increasing around the worl d(9th UN Congress, 1995) In September 1997, Canadian Justice Minister, Anne McLellan, declared youth justice as a top priority. These and similar facts speak to the urgency for society to study youth crime and examine youth justice systems from a comparative perspective. As our world gets smaller, we discover the urgency and importance of sharing and learning at a global level. This collection offers a unique opportunity to examine six different juvenile justice systems and youth crime around the world. All eleven articles are original contributions from a distinguished set of experts on juvenile justice in their respective countries. Each contribution examines a set of common elements: defining delinquency, describing the nature and extent of youth crime, examining the administration of youth justice, and discussing issues confronting youth crime. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to students, criminologists, and criminal justice policy-makers who are interested in improving the intervention, treatment, and prevention of youth crime, and the administration of youth justice.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

This comprehensive reference work presents inside information on the Juvenile Justice-systems in 19 different countries, both in old and new EU-member states and in the United States and Canada. The book is the result of research conducted by a group of outstanding researchers, who are concerned about trends in Juvenile Justice in the last two decades, which blur the border between criminal and juvenile justice.