This book provides an understanding of youth offending and policy and practice responses that have been underpinned by risk factor research. The arguments set out in this book engage with the purposes, quality and conclusions of risk factor research with young people and the deterministic and prescriptive nature of the risk factor paradigm. This book explores youth justice and youth offending in the context of the original and contemporary manifestations of risk factor research with young people in England and Wales as well as internationally. It analyses the influence of concepts of risk upon policy development in England and Wales, highlighting tensions between the proponents of risk factor research and methodological and ethical criticisms of the risk factor paradigm. Understanding Youth Offending will be essential reading for anybody wishing to understand risk factor explanations of crime, contemporary youth justice policy and responses to offending behaviour.

"Understanding Youth in Late Modernity is a highly readable book which lends itself bothas a solid introduction and a reference point to the historical developments and theoreticaldebates taking place within the discipline of youth studies. This book provides a highly accessible text for anybody interested in the subject of youth and its changing role in late modernity. I thoroughly recommend it." Journal of Contemporary European Studies This illuminating new book embeds our understanding of the youth question within a historical context. It shows how the ideas of past political action, in conjunction with the diverse paradigms of social science disciplines, have shaped modern conceptions of the youth question. This relationship between the political and the academic is then explored through a detailed examination of contemporary debates about youth, in areas such as; transitions, education, crime policy and criminology, consumption and youth culture. From this analysis the book is able to show how the youth question in late modernity is being shaped. This important text includes: A historical overview of the making of modern youth, identifying major changes that took place over three centuries Examples of how political and academic responses construct youth as a social problem An evaluation of the impact of social change in late modernity on our understanding of the youth question and the everyday lives of the young. The book concludes by suggesting that in contemporary understandings of the youth question significant differences exist between the political and the academic. Major challenges exist if this gap is to be addressed and a new public social science needs to emerge that reconstitutes debates about youth within a form of communicative democracy. Understanding Youth in Late Modernity is key reading for students and academics interested in the historical conception of the youth problem, its evolution throughout modernity and endeavours to find a solution.

Tackling juvenile offending has become a key part of crime reduction strategies. The articles selected for this volume examine juvenile offending from various critical perspectives and represent the work of the most influential international figures in the field. The issues addressed include: the different needs and perspectives of youth offenders; whether offenders should be treated differently from others because of their age; recommendations of policy changes; identification of risk factors; issues surrounding the sentencing of juvenile offenders; and the relevance of restorative justice.

Taking a new approach to youth crime, this book argues that the transition from childhood to adulthood can be an isolating and disempowering experience for young people. Children and young people are inherently vulnerable because of their age and status – they are a minority group, with the potential for being exploited, discriminated against, dominated and disrespected by adults. Youth Offending in Transition explores how their treatment by adult society may lead young people to resort to crime as a means of gaining respect from their peers. Using concepts of capital and the narratives of young offenders themselves, this book is based on original research into the reasons why young people start and stop offending. It discusses the following topics: criminal theory and the significance of youth transitions to the ‘age-crime curve’ social identity and reputation amongst young people social inequalities and their influence on youth transitions the criminalization and discrimination of young people by adults the importance of social recognition in reducing offending.

This topical, accessibly written book moves beyond established critiques to outline a model of positive youth justice: Children First, Offenders Second. Already in use in Wales, the proposed model promotes child-friendly, diversionary, inclusive, engaging, promotional practice and legitimate partnership between children and adults which can serve as a blueprint for other local authorities and countries. Setting out a progressive, positive and principled model of youth justice, the book will appeal to academics, students, practitioners and policy makers seeking to improve working practices and outcomes and will make an important contribution to the debate on youth justice policy.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of assessment and intervention planning with young people who offend. It will help equip practitioners with the knowledge and professional skills central to these critically important tasks. The context for practice is changing rapidly and the authors take into account current policy developments along with a wide range of literature on assessment practice in criminal justice and social care. The book encourages readers to think critically and to take practical steps to enhance their own practice. It will be important reading for anyone working with young people who offend.

This book represents the first major analysis of Anglo-Australian youth justice and penality to be published and it makes significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the wider field of comparative criminology. By exploring trends in law, policy and practice over a forty-year period, the book critically surveys the ‘moving images’ of youth justice regimes and penal cultures, the principal drivers of reform, the core outcomes of such processes and the overall implications for theory building. It addresses a wide range of questions including: How has the temporal and spatial patterning of youth justice and penality evolved since the early 1980s to the present time? What impacts have legislative and policy reforms imposed upon processes of criminalisation, sentencing practices and the use of penal detention for children and young people? How do we comprehend both the diverse ways in which public representations of ‘young offenders’ are shaped, structured and disseminated and the varied, conflicting and contradictory effects of such representations? To what extent do international human rights standards influence law, policy and practice in the realms of youth justice and penality? To what extent are youth justice systems implicated in the production and reproduction of social injustices? How, and to what degree, are youth justice systems and penal cultures internationalised, nationalised, regionalised or localised? The book is essential reading for researchers, students and tutors in criminology, criminal justice, law, social policy, sociology and youth studies.

Sport-based crime prevention programmes are becoming increasingly popular worldwide but until now there has been very little research on the effectiveness of such approaches. Bringing together authoritative evidence from existing programmes, the authors identify and analyse emerging successful practices. Covering mentoring and coaching, particularly as they relate to Positive Youth Development (PYD) programmes, the authors explore how the development of core life skills can improve individual resilience and decrease the risk of criminal involvement. The book conceptualizes the links between criminological theory and PYD and gives recommendations for future policy and practice.

Diversion in youth justice is a subject of enduring interest. It concerns the processes by which decisions are made about whether or not to prosecute young offenders, and this book explores the continuing debates and historical developments which shape these processes. The treatment of young offenders is a contentious subject, and this book provides a comprehensive review of out of court decision-making in the context of wider arguments about how we should deal with the crimes of the young. This book follows a broadly historical structure, exploring the development of ideas and approaches to agency decision-making at the point of prosecution. This leads to the identification of a number of distinctive ‘models’ of diversion, reflecting both specific periods of time and particular philosophies of intervention with young people in trouble with the law. Based on this classification, this book explores the implications for wider debates about childhood, crime and punishment and how these relate to theories of social control. This, in turn, leads to the conclusion that diversionary ideas and practices act as a kind of barometer for wider developments in the governance of youth. This is one of the very few books that focuses exclusively on diversion as a feature of youth justice, and it provides a range of original and contemporary insights into this subject area which remains of considerable interest in this field, both academically and in practice. The ideas outlined here will contribute to new thinking in youth criminology, as the discipline responds to a prolonged period of apparent liberalisation in the treatment of young offenders which has yet to be fully understood or properly theorised.

This Dictionary explicitly addresses the historical, legal, theoretical, organisational, policy, practice, research and evidential contexts within which 'modern' youth justice in the UK and beyond is located. The entries cover a spectrum of theoretical orientations and conceptual perspectives and engage explicitly with the key statutory provisions and policy and practice imperatives within each of the three UK jurisdictions. This book is a key resource for those teaching and studying under-graduate and post-graduate courses in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social policy, law, socio-legal studies, community justice, social work, youth and community work and police studies, together with policy-makers, managers and practitioners working within the youth justice sphere (including staff training officers, youth justice officers, social workers, probation officers, police officers, teachers and education workers, health professionals, youth workers, drug and alcohol workers and juvenile secure estate staff). The Dictionary of Youth Justice: is designed to meet the needs of researchers, policy-makers, managers, practitioners and students; begins with an introductory chapter that maps the key shifts in contemporary national and international youth justice systems; contains over 300 alphabetically arranged entries - written by almost 100 experts in the respective fields - that explicitly address the core components of youth justice in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland; Provides specifically tailored recommended key texts and sources in respect of each entry; is closely cross-referenced and contains a detailed index to assist readers to make connections between and across entries; includes a detailed 'Directory of Agencies' that relate to youth justice in each of the three UK jurisdictions; is compiled and edited by one of the UK's leading authorities in youth justice.