Too Little Too Late

Author(s):  
Michaela Soyer

Chapter 3 focuses on the youths’ experiences of the punitive and rehabilitative aspects of juvenile justice. This chapter contextualizes depictions of inner-city men as being subject to top-down control mechanisms within a range of alternatives. Left without any support from the juvenile justice system, poverty and violence are as limiting as constant supervision and control.

Author(s):  
Marie Dumollard

This article examines the support provided by Quebec’s juvenile justice system for young people classified as offenders who transition to adulthood and who are in open custody. Analyzing life-course narratives of these young people, it highlights the paradoxical nature of penal interventions that, vacillating between support and control, simultaneously enable and constrain the development of autonomy. Faced with restrictive and contradictory institutional regulations, young people adapt their relationship to socio-judicial services by adopting three types of attitude.


1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles F. Frazier ◽  
Roberto Hugh Potter

The American stance on law and control policy relating to alcohol and drug use has been replete with vacillations. Decriminalization and treatment oriented responses have emerged alongside continued support for laws calling for stiffer penalties and stepped up enforcement. In this situation, concern has grown over the possibilities that liberal legislation is subverted in actual practice to serve other purposes. It is feared offenders may be coerced into alternative sentences in the name of treatment and that such treatments may ultimately be more restrictive than traditional punitive dispositions. The present study examines the dispositions of juvenile offenders at three levels in the justice system. Alcohol and drug of fenders are compared to other offender types. Our data show no significant differentials in the severity of disposition alcohol and drug offenders receive. Moreover, the data show that youths violating drug and alcohol statutes are no more likely than other offender types at the same level of offense seriousness of being coerced into treatment programs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zia Akhtar

The UK government has decided on a policy goal that is set out in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill 2014. This goal is to invest in ‘Secure Colleges’, which are institutions planned to make young criminals ‘better citizens not better criminals’. The question is: What is the role of punishment: deterrence, incapacitation or rehabilitation? This article considers the juvenile justice system in Scotland with reference to the objectives set out in the Kilbrandon Report in 1964 and evaluates the perspective of early criminologists who state that offenders exercise a free choice in embarking on a life of crime. It is also evaluated in the light of those empirical studies that expose the harsh discipline and control in prisons as ‘oppressive’ and not likely to reform the offenders. The UK policy regarding young offenders underwent a change after the James Bulger murder in 1993 and became a deterrence-based approach. This has led to measures on both sides of the border which were retributive, such as the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility and the early intervention of probation services. This article considers the modern themes of juvenile justice and argues that the ‘Secure Colleges’ will be a corrective institution that should inculcate a more informed policy towards reintegration for the young offenders so that they emerge from the criminal justice system as improved citizens after completing their sentence.


1976 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 428-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Lundman

This paper describes diversion from the juvenile justice system, among the newest of the strategies adopted to prevent and control delinquent behavior; specifies the sociological origins of diversion programs, with special attention to the symbolic interactionist tradition, labeling theory, and labeling research; and considers certain problems and implications of diversion programs. The essential conclusion drawn is that diversion will probably not reduce recidivism or correct existing abuses.


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