Juvenile justice and youth governance: themes, trends and perspectives

Estrella Pearce and Greg Martin

Chapter 1 in Research Handbook on Youth Criminology, 2025, pp 2-29 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores the multifaceted nature of youth justice governance across jurisdictions. How different societies treat children and young people, whether as victims or offenders, reveals not only differences in cultural values and ethical principles but also variations in legal frameworks, social norms and historical contexts. Accordingly, the chapter begins by examining historical and theoretical perspectives on the emergence of ‘childhood’ as a distinct life stage and ‘juvenile’ as a distinct category of offender, both of which were key developments leading to the establishment of separate and specialist youth justice systems in many parts of the world. The chapter then considers ongoing debates over prioritising human rights, welfare, justice or risk management, stressing the hybrid nature of contemporary youth justice practices, which are often marked by inconsistencies and contradictory aims and outcomes. It also looks at the ways juvenile justice approaches have been informed and shaped by welfare, justice and corporatist models of youth governance, which have been variously favoured and applied by policymakers at different points in time. Among other things, it is intended that the material presented in this chapter provides a comprehensive foundation for understanding global, national and local approaches to both past and present youth justice policy, practice and research, thus setting the stage for the research on youth criminology that is contained in the chapters of this Handbook.

Keywords: Childhood; Corporatism; Delinquency; Diversion; Justice; Juvenile; Risk; Welfare; Youth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035300747
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