Depending on their dynamics, neighbourhoods may serve to contain or exacerbate youth violence. This book uses fascinating ethnographic and interview data to explore the disappearance of localized relationships in a South London housing estate. Through a comparative analysis of the experiences of different generations, James Alexander considers the impact of both wider socio-economic developments and the gradual move from neighbourly to professional support for young people. As well as evaluating the effectiveness of youth work programmes, he considers how the actions of neighbours and the decisions of policymakers influence how supported young people feel and, consequently, their vulnerability to criminal influences.

For many children and young people, Britain is a harmful society in which to grow up. This book contextualizes the violence that occurs between a small number of young people within a wider perspective on social harm. Aimed at academics, youth workers and policy makers, the book presents a new way to make sense of this pressing social problem. The authors also propose measures to substantially improve the lives of Britain's young people in areas ranging from the early years to youth services and the criminal justice system.

When juvenile violence and crime skyrocketed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, every state in the country responded by significantly altering the jurisdiction, purpose, process, sentencing, and services of their juvenile justice systems. Analyzing the history of juvenile justice over the last two hundred years, The Cycle of Juvenile Justice is an illuminating examination of the patterns in which changes like these play out. This much-needed and timely new edition provides an account of changes in the American juvenile justice system from 1990 to the present, and, by building on and expanding the ideas of the original edition, the authors refine their demonstration of how juvenile justice policy undergoes cycles of reform, alternating between offender-focused and offense-focused policies. All of the material from the previous edition has been revised and updated, and to incorporate recent key developments in juvenile justice, many new chapters have been added . Each of these provides historical context on each change, examining the rhetoric surrounding policies and their implementation, and assesses whether the policy and system changes resulted in a perpetuation of the cycle or represents real progress and reform. Analyzing the best and worst aspects of these policies, as well as the state of the present system, this book will continue to provide a controversial and challenging look at the issues involved in juvenile justice.

'Courageous and brutally honest' Ollie Ollerton

'A memoir to shine a light in the darkest of nights . . . a story of redemption' Tony Parsons

Michael Maisey was excited the day he was locked up in the notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institute. He was going to be a legend to all his mates. The sixteen year old was in for attempted murder. He was innocent of this particular crime but amongst the violent and dangerous young men on his wing he was about to learn exactly how far he’d go to survive.

In Young Offender we see what turned a good kid into a wanted criminal. Abused by his uncle, bullied at school, at the age of twelve he found the safety he craved in the ranks of a local gang in West London. He graduated from shoplifting to armed robbery and for five years Michael was in and out of Feltham, on a downward spiral of crime and drug and alcohol addiction. At rock bottom, he began attending AA meetings. But the road to recovery would mean changing himself in the deepest possible ways. Could Michael finally learn what it meant to be a good man?

Honest and inspiring, this is a powerful story of redemption. Today Michael is a successful businessman and a loving father who spends time helping others find their way.

American Juvenile Justice is a definitive volume for courses on the criminology and policy analysis of adolescence. The focus is on the principles and policy of a separate and distinct system of juvenile justice. The book opens with an introduction of the creation of adolescence, presenting a justification for the category of the juvenile or a period of partial responsibility before full adulthood. Subsequent sections include empirical investigations of the nature of youth criminality and legal policy toward youth crime. At the heart of the book is an argument for a penal policy that recognizes diminished responsibility and a youth policy that emphasizes the benefits of letting the maturing process continue with minimal interruption. The book concludes with applications of the core concerns to five specific problem areas in current juvenile justice: teen pregnancy, transfer to criminal court, minority overrepresentation, juvenile gun use, and youth homicide.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Putting forward a new recovery roadmap and new reform models for prisoners reintegration, Best provides an accessible guide for the implementation of community partnerships for people in recovery from substance abuse or rehabilitating from offending. Using case studies and a strengths-based approach the book emphasizes the importance of long-term recovery and the role that communities and peers play in the process.

Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, brings his inimitable vision, exhaustive research, and mesmerizing prose to this timely book that dissects violence and offers new solutions to the age old problem of why people kill.

Lonnie Athens was raised by a brutally domineering father.  Defying all odds, Athens became a groundbreaking criminologist who turned his scholar's eye to the problem of why people become violent.  After a decade of interviewing several hundred violent convicts--men and women of varied background and ethnicity, he discovered "violentization," the four-stage process by which almost any human being can evolve into someone who will assault, rape, or murder another human being.  Why They Kill is a riveting biography of Athens and a judicious critique of his seminal work, as well as an unflinching investigation into the history of violence.

Listening to Killers offers an inside look at twenty years' worth of murder files from Dr. James Garbarino, a leading expert psychological witness who listens to killers so that he can testify in court. The author offers detailed accounts of how killers travel a path that leads from childhood innocence to lethal violence in adolescence or adulthood. He places the emotional and moral damage of each individual killer within a larger scientific framework of social, psychological, anthropological, and biological research on human development. By linking individual cases to broad social and cultural issues and illustrating the social toxicity and unresolved trauma that drive some people to kill, Dr. Garbarino highlights the humanity we share with killers and the role of understanding and empathy in breaking the cycle of violence.

This book analyses the experiences of prisoners in England & Wales sentenced when relatively young to very long life sentences (with minimum terms of fifteen years or more). Based on a major study, including almost 150 interviews with men and women at various sentence stages and over 300 surveys, it explores the ways in which long-term prisoners respond to their convictions, adapt to the various challenges that they encounter and re-construct their lives within and beyond the prison. Focussing on such matters as personal identity, relationships with family and friends, and the management of time, the book argues that long-term imprisonment entails a profound confrontation with the self. It provides detailed insight into how such prisoners deal with the everyday burdens of their situation, feelings of injustice, anger and shame, and the need to find some sense of hope, control and meaning in their lives. In doing so, it exposes the nature and consequences of the life-changing terms of imprisonment that have become increasingly common in recent years.

A one-stop resource of practical exercises for professionals to use in direct work with offenders aged 16+. Changing Offending Behaviour is a guide to the essentials of rehabilitation theory which also equips the reader with ready-to-use photocopiable exercises and activities to help put the theory into practice in rehabilitation work with adult offenders. Drawing on a range of evidence-based methodologies, theories and treatment approaches, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Attachment Theory, Relationally-based Therapies, Social Learning Theory, Motivational Interviewing and the Cycle of Change, this resource provides exercises to increase self-understanding, examine patterns of behaviour, and build empathy and other crucial skills. All the exercises are culturally aware and designed for maximum flexibility to meet different needs and learning styles. Covering must-know theory and packed with practical exercises that work, this is an indispensable resource for probation workers and related professionals.

Long-term prisoners need to be given the space to reflect, and grow. This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the 'big' questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently. Using the prisoners' own words, Szifris shows the importance of this type of education for growth and development. She demonstrates how the philosophical dialogue led to a form of community which provided a space for self-reflection, pro-social interaction and communal exploration of ideas, which could have long-term positive consequences.

This book ties restorative justice into the exercise of patriarchal power. It is focused on the individual narratives of 15 girls and young women who have participated in a victim-offender restorative justice (RJ) conference and the perspectives of youth justice practitioners. Gender, Power and Restorative Justice expands feminist engagement with RJ by focusing critical attention on the importance of the social construction of gender, the exercise of power, shame, stigma, muting and resistance to girls' experiences of RJ conferencing. Drawing upon recent developments to the sociology of stigma and feminist perspectives on shame, the book contends that RJ conferencing can produce harmful implications for girls and young women who participate. Ultimately it is argued that anti-carceral, social policy alternatives, underpinned by feminist praxis, should replace a youth justice jurisprudence for girls. This book will be of particular use and interest to those studying modules on criminology, youth justice, criminal justice and social work courses.

Rethinking Black Motherhood and Drug Addictions: Counternarratives of Black Family Resilience offers a unique perspective on the complexities of being a Black mother addicted to crack, powder cocaine, heroin, and crank. Qualitative interviews provide rich narratives from five Black mothers challenging negative controlled images and stereotypes of Black motherhood and drug addiction. Using Black Feminist Thought, Critical Race Feminism, and Resilience as conceptual frameworks, this book confronts hegemonic constructions of Black mothers and their children within the context of drug addictions. Particular attention is focused on using the mothers' self-definitions of struggles and family resilience to dismantle the negative controlled images of the junkie and the crack ho' and her crack baby. The mothers in this book speak truth to their experiences with motherhood and addictions to some of the most powerful street drugs that explicitly defy the junkie, crack ho', and crack baby images. The book also addresses tensions existing within researcher-participant relationships and nuances unique to research with Black mothers in recovery. Personal lessons learned and challenges experienced during the research process are highlighted as Tivis shares dilemmas of self-reflections of positionality, accountability and use of language. Rethinking Black Motherhood and Drug Addictions contains important implications for research and practice in education and across other disciplines concentrating on mothers and children from racially diverse backgrounds. This book will be relevant for both undergraduate and graduate students and academics within these disciplines. Rethinking Black Motherhood and Drug Addictions will be of interest to advanced pre-service teachers and other disciplines engaging in clinical and professional practice with addiction and with families.

When Kate married gangster Ronnie Kray, he introduced her to the most deadly criminals ever known. She persuaded them to talk about their crimes, fears and dreams. The result is a book offering an authentic, shocking and gripping insight into the criminal mind. In this true crime classic, Kate Kray delves into the world of some of Britain's most dangerous prisoners, conducting first-hand interviews with them in order to better understand their crimes. From cold contract killings to crimes of passion, this is a fascinating insight into the minds of murderers who have been punished with the longest sentence of all.

How did Scotland's criminal justice system respond to marginalised street children who found themselves on the wrong side of the law, often for simple vagrancy or other minor offences? This book examines the historical criminalisation of Scotland's Victorian children, as well as revealing the history and early success of the Scottish day industrial school movement - a philanthropic response to juvenile offending hailed as 'magic' in Charles Dickens's Household Words. With case studies ranging from police courts to the High Court of Justiciary, the book offers a lively account of the way children experienced Scotland's early juvenile justice system.

Crime is always part of a social process. In many cases that process determines the form the crime takes. In this ground-breaking book, a wide range of crimes are examined in terms of the social psychological processes that influence the participants and their relationships with each other. Crimes as diverse as fraud and hostage taking are examined from a range of social science perspectives, including broad anthropological perspectives on differences in the structure of criminal cultures as well as the detailed consideration of the roles offenders play in groups and teams of criminals. This book opens up a new area of empirical study of relevance to students of crime as well as law enforcement officers. It will also be of value and interest to all those social scientists who wish to understand how their disciplines can contribute more effectively to the investigation of crime.

This book explores the development and implementation of Child First as an innovative guiding principle for improving youth justice systems. Applying contemporary research understandings of what leads to positive child outcomes and safer communities, Child First challenges traditional risk-led and stigmatising approaches to working with children in trouble. It has now been adopted as the four-point guiding principle for all policy and practice across the youth justice system in England and Wales, it is becoming a key reform principle for youth justice in Northern Ireland, and it is increasingly influential across several western jurisdictions. With contributions from academics, policymakers and practitioners, this book critically charts the progress and challenges in establishing a progressive evidence-led youth justice system. Its dynamic and accessible integration of theory, research, policy and practice, alongside discussion of critical themes, makes it a key read for students on youth crime/justice modules and for a wider market. Stephen Case is Professor of Youth Justice in the Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy division at Loughborough University, UK. Neal Hazel is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Health and Society at the University of Salford, UK.

This book provides in-depth coverage of guns, gun violence and gun homicides from a variety of perspectives, including, but not limited to, gender, suicide, peaceology and police (in)action. Reflecting changes in contemporary perceptions as well as desires for scholarship emanating from under-researched areas of the globe, this book addresses the pervasive issue of guns, gun violence and gun homicides. Authored by a wide range of Social Science experts, and premised on the notions of epistemological diversity, inclusivity and knowledge production in the Global South, this book provides comprehensive coverage on the nebulous concern of guns and their destructive force using differing approaches to the same problem, with a focus on prevention/reduction of gun violence. Readers may find the chapters contained in this book to be fascinating, provocative, informative, clearly presented and solution oriented. This book is of special interest to students, criminologists, policymakers, criminal justice system officials and laypersons. It is invaluable to policymakers at differing levels of government who provide advice on the social issue of guns and gun violence in their respective jurisdictions.

This two-volume, edited collection lays the groundwork for an international exploration of incarceration and generation, covering a range of geographic, judicial and administrative contexts of incarceration from contributors across a range of subjects. Volume II examines intergenerational relations issues within contexts of incarceration. It focuses on the intergenerational continuities in imprisonment; intergenerational justice and citizenship; the impacts of incarceration on multiple generations and within families; and media representations of the intergenerationality of incarceration. Volume I explores an array of experiences, dynamics, cultures, interventions, and impacts of incarceration in different generations. This collection speaks to academics in criminology, sociology, psychology, and law, and to practitioners and policymakers interested in incarceration.

This book seeks to break new ground in the way in which adolescent-to-parent violence and abuse is understood. Incorporating knowledge from an original research project undertaken in the UK and international literature, this book provides insight into the prevalence of this form of domestic violence which can include psychological, physical, and economic abuse. Young person and family characteristics are explored, and links are made between sibling aggression and school bullying behaviours. A key theme is how the data can be used to develop statistical models which can screen for young people behaving abusively towards their parents. It discusses how the research can be applied to inform theoretical frameworks, policy development, and professional practice, with a focus on prevention and early intervention that uses positive youth justice and restorative approaches.

This two-volume, edited collection lays the groundwork for an international exploration of incarceration and generation, cover a range of geographic, judicial and administrative contexts of incarceration from contributors across a range of subjects. Volume I explores an array of experiences, dynamics, cultures, interventions and impacts of incarceration in specific generations: childhood, youth and emerging adulthood, adulthood and older age. It covers topics such as: the expansion of the penal landscape; deprivation of liberty regarding children, the problem of unaccompanied migrant children; the incarceration of young adults and adults, exploring its impacts within and beyond incarceration and the consequences of imprisoning older populations. Volume II examines intergenerational relations issues within different contexts of incarceration. This collection discusses public policies and the role of the state and the citizen deprived of liberty. It speaks to academics in criminology, sociology, psychology, and law, and to practitioners and policymakers interested in incarceration.

Legacies of Crime explores the lives of seriously delinquent girls and boys in the United States who were followed over a twenty-year period as they grew to adulthood. In-depth interviews with these women and men and their children - a majority now adolescents themselves - depict the adults' economic and social disadvantages and continued criminal involvement, and in turn the unique vulnerabilities of their children. Giordano identifies family dynamics that foster the intergenerational transmission of crime, violence, and drug abuse, rejecting the notion that such continuities are based solely on genetic similarities or even lax, inconsistent parenting. The author breaks new ground in directly exploring - and in the process revising - the basic tenets of classic social learning theories, and confronting the complications associated with the parent's gender. Legacies of Crime also identifies factors associated with resilience in the face of what is often a formidable package of risks favoring intergenerational continuity.

Equipping Young People to Choose Non-Violence is a 12-session programme for those working with young people aged 10+ whose use of violent or aggressive behaviour is problematic. Designed to be used individually, the programme is grounded in restorative justice principles and encourages the young person to take responsibility for their behaviour. It also supports them in recognizing the effects of their actions and in identifying ways to repair the harm caused, and teaches them new skills in dealing with conflict and avoiding future violence. A theory section explains the value and evidence base and provides guidance on delivering the programme. Each session is clearly laid out with identified objectives, how to begin and end the session, and photocopiable handouts are included. This will be of great use to all those working with young people involved in violent behaviour, including youth offending teams, social workers, youth workers and school counsellors.

Addressing common myths and misconceptions about sexual offending, this book highlights the current state of scientific knowledge about the origins and the development of sexual offending. It offers a critical overview of current criminal justice policies and close to 100 years of research on how to best improve these policies through theoretically-grounded and methodologically-rigorous research. Focusing on proactive prevention-oriented strategies, this book revisits popular ideas about sexual offending through an evidence-based lens, addressing ideological and populist discourse that has led to ineffective and reactive policies. It advocates for a clearly defined concept of the phenomenon of sexual offending to underpin research and treatment. Uniquely, authors consider sexual offending from the viewpoint of criminal justice research and practitioners, incorporating the sociohistorical construction of sexual offending as a social problem, developmental life course research, and the impact of social policies. This book is a call for more proactive research on the origins and the development of sexual offending over the life course.