At a time when Europe is witnessing major cultural, social, economic and political challenges and transformations, this book brings together leading researchers and experts to consider a range of pressing questions relating to the historical origins, contemporary manifestations and future prospects for juvenile justice. Questions considered include: How has the history of juvenile justice evolved across Europe and how might the past help us to understand the present and signal the future? What do we know about contemporary juvenile crime trends in Europe and how are nation states responding? Is punitivity and intolerance eclipsing child welfare and pedagogical imperatives, or is ‘child-friendly justice’ holding firm? How might we best understand both the convergent and the divergent patterning of juvenile justice in a changing and reformulating Europe? How is juvenile justice experienced by identifiable constituencies of children and young people both in communities and in institutions? What impacts are sweeping austerity measures, together with increasing mobilities and migrations, imposing? How can comparative juvenile justice be conceptualised and interpreted? What might the future hold for juvenile justice in Europe at a time of profound uncertainty and flux? This book is essential reading for students, tutors and researchers in the fields of criminology, history, law, social policy and sociology, particularly those engaged with childhood and youth studies, human rights, comparative juvenile/youth justice, youth crime and delinquency and criminal justice policy in Europe.

Juvenile Delinquency in Europe and Beyond: Results of the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study presents the status of juvenile crime and delinquency and its backgrounds in many of the European Union member states as well as in the United States, Canada, Venezuela and Surinam. The book includes information on key issues in juvenile delinquency such as victimization of young people, alcohol and drug use and its relation to juvenile crime, involvement in youth gangs, immigration, family and school and neighborhood situations. It provides insight into different views on what can be considered juvenile crime; what acts are subsumed in its definition and when we can speak about structural delinquent behavior. These insights are based on self-reported information systematically and simultaneously collected from about 70,000 12-15 year old youths in 28 countries. Until recently, the self-report methodology has not been applied on such a large scale in an international context. The results of this survey provide new and unexpected data about those young people who structurally commit criminal acts, as well as on the frequency of the behavior and the conditions that have an impact on offending. The wealth of descriptions and insights in delinquency of all these countries will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners because of the special character of the publication; it is a book of reference to everyone interested in the backgrounds of juvenile delinquency.

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.

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.

This handbook is an up-to-date examination of advances in the fields of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice that includes interdisciplinary perspectives from leading scholars and practitioners. Examines advances in the fields of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice with interdisciplinary perspectives from leading scholars and practitioners Provides a current state of both fields, while also assessing where they have been and defining where they should go in years to come Addresses developments in theory, research, and policy, as well as cultural changes and legal shifts Contains summaries of juvenile justice trends from around the world, including the US, the Netherlands, Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, and China Covers central issues in the scholarly literature, such as social learning theories, opportunity theories, criminal processing, labeling and deterrence, gangs and crime, community-based sanctions and reentry, victimization, and fear of crime

′In this pathbreaking volume Muncie and Goldson bring together leading authors to examine and compare youth justice systems around the world. Comparative Youth Justice will be of interest to all criminologists concerned with comparative penal policy and will be essential to all scholars of youth justice′ - Professor Tim Newburn, London School of Economics and Political Science and President of the British Society of Criminology ′Comparative Youth Justice is what we need in an era of hardening social policies and irresponsible political demagoguery: thoughtful critiques, comparative analysis, and a commitment to the rights of youth. John Muncie and Barry Goldson have done a fine job of bringing together a group of commentators who know the inner workings of juvenile justice and what it will take to change the current law and order model. A book that is required reading for practitioners, professors, policy makers, researchers, and students concerned about the bankrupt state of juvenile justice and willing to consider new ideas and directions′ - Tony Platt, California State University, Sacramento With contributions from leading commentators from 13 different countries, this carefully integrated edited collection comprises the most authoritive comparative analysis of international youth justice currently available. However, Comparative Youth Justice is not simply an attempt to document national similarities and differences, but looks critically at how global trends are translated at the local level. This book also examines how youth justice is implemented in practice with a view to promoting change as well as reflection. Each chapter addresses key critical issues: - the degree of compliance with international law; - the extent of repenalistion; - adulteration; - tolerance; - the impact of experiments in restoration and risk management. This book is designed as a companion volume to Youth Crime and Justice, edited by Barry Goldson and John Muncie, published simultaneously by SAGE Publications. ′This is a brilliant set of edited volumes that will be an indispensable and timely source of information and analysis for anyone with an interest in issues of youth justice and comparative criminology.′ David A. Green, Oxford University

This title was first published in 2002: Becoming Delinquent: British and European Youth, 1650-1950 provides a critical synthesis of the growing body of work on the history of British and European juvenile delinquency. It is unique in that it analyzes definitions of and responses to, disorderly youth across time (from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries) and across space (covering developments across Western Europe). This comparative approach allows it to show how certain themes dominated European discourses of delinquency across this period, not least panics about urban culture, poor parenting, dangerous pleasures, family breakdown, national fitness and future social stability. It also shows how these various threats were countered by recurring strategies, most notably by repeated attempts to deter delinquency, to divide responsibility between the state, civil society and the family, and to find a "proper" balance between moral reform and physical punishment, between care and control.