NCJ Number
208679
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2005 Pages: 35-64
Date Published
February 2005
Length
30 pages
Annotation
Based on a wide range of bibliographic and Web resources, this article assesses the extent to which a combination of identified factors have now made it possible to conceptualize a global juvenile/youth justice.
Abstract
One of the global processes that has impacted juvenile justice polices throughout the world is the movement from welfare to neo-liberal governance, which has been broadly characterized as giving less attention to the social contexts of crime and the responsibilities of state protection and more emphasis on prescriptions of individual, family, and community responsibility and accountability. Another global process that has fueled a trend toward cross-cultural convergence in juvenile justice policy is "policy transfer," i.e. the tendency of nation-states to examine justice policies worldwide to identify "what works" in preventing crime. A third global process that is facilitating a near-global consensus in juvenile justice is the development and influence of international conventions, such as the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This convention has molded a consensus among many governments that all children have a right to protection, to participation, and to basic material provision. A comparative analysis of trends in uniformity in criminal justice policy across nations shows that the United States and England and Wales are atypical in pursuing an excessively punitive policy toward juveniles, as juveniles are imprisoned at relatively high rates. The countries of the United Kingdom have some of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the European Union. Thus, the factors that have tended to have global influence in juvenile justice have had varying degrees of impact. There still remain national, regional, and local enclaves of difference and resistance to global trends. 115 references