Juvenile Justice in Global Perspective

Franklin E. Zimring, Maximo Langer, David S. Tanenhaus, Franklin E. Zimring, Maximo Langer, David S. Tanenhaus

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781479843886
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479890446
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: International Law
• Index: Social Sciences

An unprecedented comparison of juvenile justice systems across the globe, Juvenile Justice in Global Perspective brings together original contributions from some of the world's leading voices.

While American scholars may have extensive knowledge about other justice systems around the world and how adults are treated, juvenile justice systems and the plight of youth who break the law throughout the world is less often studied. This important volume fills a large gap in the study of juvenile justice by providing an unprecedented comparison of criminal justice and juvenile justice systems across the world, looking for points of comparison and policy variance that can lead to positive change in the United States.

Distinguished criminology scholars Franklin Zimring, Máximo Langer, and David Tanenhaus, and the contributors cover countries from Western Europe to rising powers like China, India, and countries in Latin America. The book discusses important issues such as the relationship between political change and juvenile justice, the common labels used to unify juvenile systems in different regions and in different forms of government, the types of juvenile systems that exist and how they differ, and more. Furthermore, the book uses its data on criminal versus juvenile justice in a wide variety of nations to create a new explanation of why separate juvenile and criminal courts are felt to be necessary.

PART I

Western Europe

The first two chapters of this volume describe the modern history of legal policy toward young offenders in Europe and Scandinavia. In chapter 1, Frieder Dünkel surveys juvenile justice and youth crime policy throughout Europe. Because western European systems have been the subject of extensive prior study, Dünkel’s analysis concentrates on documenting changes in policy over the last generation as well as the developments in nations in central and eastern Europe that experienced political transitions after 1989. What the chapter shows is much more continuity in Europe than change, and Dünkel concludes that “youth justice has successfully resisted a punitive turn.”

In chapter 2, Tapio Lappi-Seppälä conducts a detailed analysis of Scandinavian responses to youth crime to investigate the impact of criminal court processing of 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Why do these traditionally progressive legal systems operate without separate juvenile courts? Do the Scandinavian criminal courts have special policies for these very youngest defendants? Would it be possible to replicate the policies found in Scandinavia in the criminal courts of other nations?

1

Juvenile Justice and Crime Policy in Europe

FRIEDER DÜNKEL

In the past 25 years, youth justice1 systems in Europe have undergone considerable changes, particularly in the former socialist countries of central and eastern Europe. However, differing and sometimes contradictory youth justice policies have also emerged in western Europe. So-called neoliberal2 tendencies could be seen particularly in England and Wales and also in France and the Netherlands (Cavadino and Dignan 2006: 215; 2007: 284; Goldson 2002: 392; Tonry 2004; Muncie and Goldson 2006; Bailleau and Cartuyvels 2007; Muncie 2008; Cimamonti, di Marino, and Zappalà 2010). In other countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, a moderate system of minimum intervention with priority given to diversion and of educational measures has been retained (Dünkel, Grzywa, Horsfield, and Pruin 2011; hereafter cited as Dünkel et al. 2011). In many countries, elements of restorative justice have been implemented, such as victim-offender mediation, reparation/restitution orders, and recently different forms of conferencing (Dünkel, Horsfield, and Grzywa 2015).

This chapter3 evaluates youth justice policies and practice in western Europe from a comparative perspective.4 The focus is on tendencies in youth justice legislation and on the sentencing practice of prosecutors and judges in youth courts. Attention is also paid to the traditional “welfare” and “justice” models of youth justice and how they have become intertwined in modern European practice. The claim that a “new punitiveness” is the prevailing strategy is questioned, and attention is drawn to the practice of many youth justice systems, which seem to be fairly resistant to neoliberal policies. Sonja Snacken (2012: 247) has recently sought to explain why continental European countries in general have succeeded in resisting “penal populism.” In the conclusion, this reasoning is applied to youth justice systems in particular.5

Contemporary Trends in Youth Justice Policy

Across Europe, policies based on the notions of the subsidiarity and proportionality of state interventions against juvenile offenders are remaining in force or emerging afresh in most, if not all, countries. Recently, however, in several European countries, we have also witnessed the adoption of a contrary approach. These developments intensify youth justice interventions by raising the maximum sentences for youth detention and by introducing additional forms of secure accommodation. The youth justice reforms in the Netherlands in 1995 and in some respects in France in 1996, 2002, and 2007 should be mentioned in this context, as should the reforms in England and Wales in 1994 and 1998 (Kilchling 2002; Cavadino and Dignan 2007: 284; 2006: 215; Junger-Tas and Decker 2006, 2009; Bailleau and Cartuyvels 2007; Dünkel et al. 2011; for earlier comparative reviews, see Kaiser 1985; Dünkel 1997). The causes of the more repressive or “neoliberal” approach in some countries are manifold. It is likely that the punitive trend in the United States, with its emphasis on retribution and deterrence, has had considerable impact in some European countries, particularly in England and Wales.

These developments at the national level, which is the primary focus of this chapter, have to be understood against the background of international and regional instruments that set standards for juvenile justice. Most important in this regard is the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a binding international treaty that all European states have ratified. It makes clear that the common and principal aim of youth justice should be to act in the “best interests of the child”—with child defined for the purpose of this convention as a person under the age of 18 years—and to provide education, support, and integration into society for such children. These ideas are developed further in the 1985 UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice and at the European level in the recommendations of the Council of Europe, in particular, the 2003 recommendation regarding new ways of dealing with juvenile offending (Rec. [2003] 20) and the 2008 rules for juvenile offenders subject to sanctions or measures (Rec. [2008] 11; Dünkel 2009; Dünkel, Grzywa, Pruin, and Šelih 2011: 1861).

In the past few years, a remarkable shift toward the educational ideal of juvenile justice can be observed in countries that were claimed to be driven by neoliberal ideas in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, such as England and Wales and recently (2014) the Netherlands. From outside Europe, a comparable revival of the traditional youth justice ideas can be observed in the US as well (see Dünkel 2014; Bishop and Feld 2012; for Canada, in spite of a “law-and-order” rhetoric, the judicial practice seems to go in the same direction).

Responsibilization and Neoliberalism

In England and Wales, and to some extent elsewhere, the concept of responsibilization has become a pivotal category of youth justice.6 Responsibilization is not limited to young offenders, but increasingly parents are held criminally responsible for the conduct of their children.7 Making parents more responsible may have a positive impact. There is empirical evidence that parental training, combined with child support at an early stage, has positive preventive effects (Lösel et al. 2007). However, it is not necessary to criminalize parents. Ideally, parental training should be offered by welfare agencies (as is the case in Germany and the Scandinavian countries) and not be enforced by penal sanctions (Junger-Tas and Dünkel 2009b: 225).

A positive aspect of making young offenders take responsibility for their actions is that it has contributed to the expansion of victim-offender reconciliation (Täter-Opfer-Ausgleich), mediation, and reparation. In the English context, however, it is more problematic as it has been accompanied by the abolition of the presumption that 10- to 14-year-olds may lack criminal capacity. Although in practice the presumption had been relatively easy to rebut, its formal abolition in 1998 was an indication of determination to hold even very young offenders responsible for their actions. The tendencies in English youth justice may be regarded as symptomatic of a neoliberal orientation, which can be characterized by the key terms of responsibility, restitution (reparation), restorative justice, and (occasionally openly publicized) retribution. These “4 Rs” have replaced the “4 Ds” (diversion, decriminalization, deinstitutionalization, and due process) that shaped the debates of the 1960s and 1970s (Dünkel 2008). The retributive character of the new discourse is exemplified by the requirement that community interventions be “tough” and “credible.” For example, the “community treatment” of the 1960s was replaced by “community punishment” in the 1980s and 1990s. Cavadino and Dignan attribute these changes to the “neo-correctionalist model” that has come to dominate official English penology (2006: 210; Bailleau and Cartuyvels 2007; Muncie 2008).

There are many reasons for the increase in neoliberal tendencies, as defined by Garland and other authors (2001a, 2001b; Roberts and Hough 2002; Tonry 2004; Pratt et al. 2005; Muncie 2008). Some are to be found in the renewed emphasis on penal philosophies such as retribution and incapacitation and in related sentencing policies that demonize youth violence, often by means of indeterminate sentences. There are also underlying socioeconomic reasons. More repressive policies have gained importance in countries that face particular problems with young migrants or members of ethnic minorities and that have problems integrating young persons into the labor market, particularly where a growing number of them live in segregated and declining city areas. They often have no real possibility of escaping life as members of the “underclass,” a phenomenon that undermines “society’s stability and social cohesion and create[s] mechanisms of social exclusion” (Junger-Tas 2006: 522, 524). They are at risk of being marginalized and eventually criminalized. In this context, recidivist offending is of major concern. Therefore, many of the more punitive changes to the law were restricted to recidivist offenders in England and Wales, France, and Slovakia, for example.

It should be emphasized, however, that in the case of most continental European countries, there is no evidence of a regression to the classical penal objectives and perceptions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Overall, there is continued adherence to the prior principle of education or special prevention, even though “justice” elements have also been reinforced. The tension between education and punishment remains evident. The reform laws that were adopted in Germany in 1990, in the Netherlands in 1995, in Spain in 2000 and 2006, in Portugal in 2001, in France and Northern Ireland in 2002, in Lithuania in 2001, in the Czech Republic in 2003, and in Serbia in 2006 are examples of this dual approach. The reforms in Northern Ireland and in Belgium in 2007 are of particular interest, as they strengthened restorative elements in youth justice, including so-called family conferencing, and thus arguably contribute to responsibilization in this way without necessarily being “neoliberal” in fundamental orientation (Christiaens, Dumortier, and Nuytiens 2011; O’Mahony and Campbell 2006; O’Mahony and Doak 2009; Doak and O’Mahony 2011).

It must be recognized, however, that even in countries with a moderate and stable youth justice practice, the rhetoric in political debates is sometimes dominated by penal populism with distinctly neoliberal undertones. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily result in a change, as can be demonstrated by a German example. At the end of 2007, several violent crimes in subways (which were filmed by automatic cameras) led to a heated public debate about the necessity to increase the sanctions provided by the Juvenile Justice Act. The leader of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) of the federal state of Hesse, Roland Koch, made this a core element of his electoral campaign by proposing the use of boot camps and other more severe punishments for juvenile violent offenders. He also used the fact that the offenders had immigrant backgrounds for xenophobic statements. Within a few days, almost 1,000 criminal justice practitioners and academics signed a resolution against such penal populism, and in January 2008, the CDU lost the elections. Since then, penal populism has not been made a major issue in electoral campaigns again. The CDU had gone too far. Muncie (2008: 109) refers to this debate in Germany and interprets it as an indicator for increased punitiveness. Yet youth justice practice in Germany has remained stable, and sentencing levels have remained relatively moderate (Heinz 2009, 2011a, 2011b; Dünkel 2011b).

Diversion, Minimum Intervention, and Community Sanctions

If one regards the developments in the disposals that are applicable to young offenders, there has been a clear expansion of the available means of diversion. However, these are o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Western Europe
• Part II. Major Understudied Systems
• Part III. The Relationship Between Political Change and Juvenile Justice: Three Case Studies
• Part IV. Some Theoretical Implications
• About the Contributors
• Index