This book explores the principles, practice and challenges in determining justice system responses to serious offending by children globally. Divided into four parts, the book provides a balance of theoretical and empirical insights. Anchored in a theoretical framework based on the human rights of children, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it considers the relationship between scientific evidence (such as brain development) and the human rights framework, before going to explore the diversity of responses to children who are found responsible for serious offences. It brings together experts from various disciplines to fill a gap relating to serious offending by children in the literature. Scholars from Africa, Latin America and Asia, as well as Europe, North America and Oceania provide perspectives from legally, socially and culturally distinct jurisdictions. The first part focuses on the theoretical framework and explores the applicable standards and principles, including the relevant human rights framework and penological approaches to sentencing children for serious crimes. The second part analyses available empirical evidence, including evidence relating to the profiles of children who commit serious crimes, child and adolescent development, effective sentencing approaches and evidence of disparities in responses to serious offending by children. The third part provides a discussion of justice system responses to serious offending by children in a range of jurisdictions or regions with diverse and distinct legal, social and cultural contexts. Finally, the book uses the theoretical framework, empirical evidence, and case studies of jurisdictions to reflect on how principles relating to responses to serious offending by children can be translated into practice, and to highlight key debates and issues that will need to be explored into the future. Adding much-needed international perspectives to the scholarship addressing the issue, this book will be of great interest to academics, students, legal practitioners and social work professionals working on youth justice and children’s rights across the globe.

This collection considers human rights and incarceration in relation to the liberal-democratic states of Australia, New Zealand and the UK. It presents original case-study material on groups that are disproportionately affected by incarceration, including indigenous populations, children, women, those with disabilities, and refugees or ‘non-citizens’. The book considers how and why human rights are eroded, but also how they can be built and sustained through social, creative, cultural, legal, political and personal acts. It establishes the need for pragmatic reforms as well as the abolition of incarceration. Contributors consider what has, or might, work to secure rights for incarcerated populations, and they critically analyse human rights in their legal, socio-cultural, economic and political contexts. In covering this ground, the book presents a re-invigorated vision of human rights in relation to incarceration. After all, human rights are not static principles; they have to be developed, fought over and engaged with.

People with personality disorder who offend tend to be neglected by health services in most countries. In the UK, there has been renewed interest in the field since government initiatives in the end of the 1990s. Government proposals themselves are controversial, but there is growing recognition that it is unsafe, both for the general public and fo

In the consciousness of politicians, professionals and the public, children and young people loom increasingly large as a challenge to be faced. This problematic image includes not only the inevitable and traditional difficulties faced by the young in negotiating a role in society, but also an increasing tendency for children to be problematized, even vilified, and for state intervention in their lives to reflect this trend. Indeed, the increasing scale and scope of central and local government policy responses to the age group can sometimes result, both intentionally and unintentionally, in additional challenges for children to overcome. The text starts with the assumption that we cannot assume that state intervention in the lives of young people will always lead to positive outcomes. The contributors explore the key policy areas such as health, education and the youth justice system, within the broader social and economic context, including race and culture, the economy and European integration.

This book presents a critique of the traditional responses to youth crime by criminal justice agencies in Australia, UK, New Zealand, USA, Canada, and a vision of how these agencies could respond more effectively. The critique examines the ways in which traditional criminal justice approaches trap young people into, rather than turn them away from, a life of crime. The vision is for criminal justice agencies - police, courts, and corrections - to become more pro-active partners in society's efforts to guide young people towards becoming happy and productive citizens; for these agencies to focus less on the exercise of retributive powers and to embrace restorative approaches; and for agencies to develop a crime prevention role through partnership with community organisations. Author Paul Omaji argues against concentrating resources on the symptom when the underlying causes are within our intellectual grasp and amenable to effective criminal justice responses. Omaji demonstrates the capacity of criminal justice agencies to become constructive partners with community organisations in preventing youth crime and constructs ground rules for high impact partnerships.

This book offers a clear and comprehensive guide to youth justice practice based on a solid grounding of academic research and in-depth understanding of how the youth justice system operates. Lessons from the past, current challenges and new directions are all explored. The book provides a judicious balance between an analysis of past policy and practical strategies for present day issues such as parental responsibility, risk and restorative justice.

The only comprehensive work on SED, with practical information on diagnosing and treating children with SED. Features contributions by leading experts of SED research and practice. Includes a foreword by Kay Jamison, a nationally recognized author on mental illness.

Over the last few years intensive community programmes for both young and adult offenders have become established in the UK as an important new component of penal policy − the ISSP (Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme) for persistent and serious young offenders, and the ICCP (Intensive Control and Change Programme) for adult offenders. Expectations of these programmes have been high, but the evidence relating to their effectiveness is mixed, and a number of critical concerns have emerged. This book seeks to address these issues, providing a timely review of the current literature, and presents findings of a recent national evaluation of ISSP. Emerging lessons for future penal policy are presented, and set within a wider theoretical context. The book concludes by stressing the need for greater realism and further evidential support if such programmes are to gain long-term credibility, and also to consider the appropriateness of differing forms of targeting as well as the emphasis placed on the various methods of surveillance.

This report reveals results of the inquiry into children being treated in an appalling way not just by their abusers but, because of catastrophic failures by the very agencies that society has appointed to protect them. It is still happening, in every part of the country. The quality of the response to the abuse depends on where you live and that is inexcusable. Race is a factor but it is one of many in cases of child sexual exploitation. Officials who fail to act, for example in places like Rotherham or Rochdale, must not be allowed to evade responsibility through early retirement or resignation for other reasons and should not be paid compensation of any kind. The police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service must all bear responsibility for the way in which vulnerable children have been left unprotected by the system. The Ministry of Justice ought to implement a number of reforms to court processes including section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999; the introduction of specialist courts either for child sexual exploitation cases or for sexual offences as a whole; and invite the Lord Chief Justice to consider recommending to the Judicial College that specific training on child sexual exploitation cases be developed and provided