NCJ Number
148987
Editor(s)
L A Knafla
Date Published
1994
Length
243 pages
Annotation
This volume consists of papers which examine, from a historical perspective, problems related to the prosecution of youthful offenders.
Abstract
The origins of the problem of prosecuting youthful offenders in England is the subject of one article, which begins with the premise that juvenile delinquency was not seen as a threat to society until the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, when there was an increase in reported delinquency attributable to the creation of new offenses that targeted juveniles, increased vigilance in local communities, the curtailment of serious punishments, and a moral panic following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Another article examines how juveniles became an important element in the reform movement of the urban middle class in the late 19th Century, and specifically how the rise of youth street traders was seen as the movement of a budding criminal generation that had to be stopped. Two articles explore facets of policing, one in a Canadian frontier settlement, the other in the British Empire. A separate article presents a study of penal reform in Hong Kong in the late 19th Century, initiated by the governor's attempt to instill racial equality in the criminal justice system. Several articles offer suggestions for the study of comparative, local criminal justice history. Chapter references