Doing Justice to Young People: Youth Crime and Social Justice

by Smith; Roger

• ISBN13: 9781843928393
• ISBN10: 1843928396
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2011-02-18
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

There is an apparent impasse in current thinking about youth crime and justice which is represented by punitive and harmful practices on one hand, and critical objections to these processes on the other, based on principles of rights and fairness. In the middle, these conflicts are mediated by liberal attempts at reform which have proved to be consistently limited in their achievements. This book, whilst clearly located within the critical perspective, attempts to move beyond this blockage, and 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 starting point is therefore a discussion of the origins and dynamics of young people's experiences, identities, attitudes and behaviour, because these form the raw material which is constituted from outside as the 'problem of youth'. Young people's concerns can only be addressed coherently if properly understood. The book also goes on to consider the parallel processes by which young people and their behaviour are problematised, and constructed as disorderly and as a threat to the wider community. The book then addresses two further areas: the machinery put in place to address these perceived problems, that is the system for managing and controlling the young; and the problematic nature of this machinery given its one-sided origins and development, and its essentially political character. This discussion will thus provide a critical basis for rethinking the relationship between young people (problematic or not) and the wider society of which they necessarily form an integral and engaged part. The book concludes by formulating an alternative model of what constitutes 'effective' policy and practice when concerns arise about their 'problem' behaviour.The book has a three part structure: Part 1 focuses on young people, their attitudes and behaviour (Young People and Crime); Part 2 considers the way in which their behaviour is constructed as criminal and then addressed (Crime and justice); Part 3 considers the limitations of current practices and potential alternatives (Towards Social Justice). In this way, the differentiated and contested nature of young people's experiences and 'youth' can be counterposed to the prevailing and discriminatory assumptions about them, in order to open up questions about the nature and purposes of the justice system itself, and the possibilities for reconstructing it according to the 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.