Youth and Crime

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Youth and Crime

• Understanding Criminology
• Dan Ellingworth
• Tuesday, 06 October 2020

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Lecture Outline

• Youth Culture
• Patterns of Youth Offending
• Formal Responses to Juvenile Crime
• Deconstructing the Youth / Crime link

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We will never get reasonable behaviour among the young until we bring back National Service. Without decent standards to guide them, the young have become lawless. Before the war there was little lawlessness. We need to return to those days
Over the past 20 years or so, there has been a revulsion from authority and discipline
The adolescent has learned no definite moral standards from his parents, is contemptuous of the law, easily bored
The passing of parental authority, defiance of pre-war conventions, the absence of restraint, the wildness of extremes, the wholesale drift away from the churches are but a few characteristics of after-war conditions
Our young people have no idea of discipline or subordination
The manners of children are deteriorating the child of today is coarser, more vulgar, less refined than his parents were
They (young people) are the links that have fallen off the chain of society which are going to decay and obstruct the whole machine
I believe that youth should sleep out the years between the age of 10 and 23 there is nothing in between but getting women pregnant, wronging the elderly, stealing, fighting
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We will never get reasonable behaviour among the young until we bring back National Service. Without decent standards to guide them, the young have become lawless. Before the war there was little lawlessness. We need to return to those days
Over the past 20 years or so, there has been a revulsion from authority and discipline
The adolescent has learned no definite moral standards from his parents, is contemptuous of the law, easily bored
The passing of parental authority, defiance of pre-war conventions, the absence of restraint, the wildness of extremes, the wholesale drift away from the churches are but a few characteristics of after-war conditions
Our young people have no idea of discipline or subordination
The manners of children are deteriorating the child of today is coarser, more vulgar, less refined than his parents were
They (young people) are the links that have fallen off the chain of society which are going to decay and obstruct the whole machine
I would there were no age between 10 and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting
1985
1981
1961
1932
1904
1898
1788
1610
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Youth as a Perpetual Problem

• Geoffrey Pearson Hooligan a history of
  respectable fears
• Common complaint is that young peoples behaviour
  is worse than 20 or 30 years ago
• Reality complaints of irresponsible youth is
  ever present throughout history

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Construction of Youth as Problematic - example

• Jamie Bulger (1993)
• Moral outrage expressed
• Widespread sensationalist coverage
• Demonisation of two 10 year olds
• 8 years increased to 15 years by Home Secretary
• Symbolic of a general crisis in childhood
• Used to justify a range of increasingly punitive
  responses to youth offending e.g. reduction of
  age of criminal responsibility to 10

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Youth a social problem in its own right?

• Is the link between youth and crime a new thing?
• Youth culture inherently rebellious?
• Evolutionary psychology rebellion as rites of
  passage
• Youth, Subculture and identity

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(No Transcript)
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Revolt into Style Recent subcultural forms of
rebellion

• 1950-70s Teddy boys, Mods, Rockers, Skinheads,
  Hippies, Rastas
• 1970s-80s Punk, Heavy Metal New Romantics
• 1990s onward Acid House, Hip hop, Rap
• Each with a specific style, formed around music,
  fashion and drug use

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Patterns of Youth Offending

• A strong relationship between age and offending
  in a variety of statistical sources
• Around ¼ of all crime committed by those aged
  10-17
• Over 2/5 of all crime committed by those aged
  under 21
• By the age of 28, around 30 of men have a
  criminal conviction

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• Young men offend at higher rates than young women
• Evidence, though, that gender differential
  narrowing
• Peak age of offending lower for women

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Peak age of offending by offence type

• 14 years old expressive property offences
• 16 years old Violent Offences
• 17 years old Serious Property Offences
• 20 years old Drug Offences

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Recent trends in Youth Offending

• Self-report offending (OCJS 2003 -gt 2005)
• Proportion of young people reported committing an
  offence stable (at 22)
• Holds true for different offence types, and for
  men (around 28) and women (16)
• Levels of serious (10) and frequent offenders
  (7) also stable

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Recent Trends in Youth Justice
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Recent trends in Youth Justice

• Use of Custody

Use of custody has increased by 90 between 1992
and 2004 Long term detention increased by
438 Use of custodial sentences for girls up by
450, boys 150
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Recent trends in Youth Justice
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Youth justice trends summarised

• No evidence of increased offending or
  victimisation
• Fewer people coming to the attention of the YJS
• Greater use of detention, both in terms of number
  and of severity

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Formal Responses to Juvenile Justice

• 1854 Youthful Offenders Act
• First recognition that youth and adult offenders
  should be considered separately
• 20th cen responses fluctuated between
• Reform and welfare on one hand, and harsher
  punishment on the other

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Current Government Policies

• Crime and Disorder Act 1998
• explicitly correctionalist
• Local authorities have a statutory duty to
  establish youth justice services
• Youth Offending Teams a one stop-shop for all
  young offenders
• Youth Justice Board established

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Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999

• Youth Offender Panels
• Restorative Justice
• Child Curfew Orders
• Child Safety Orders

• Anti-social Behaviour Orders
• Police powers to tackle truancy
• Reparation Orders
• Action Plan Orders
• Parenting Orders

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Audit Commission Report into Youth Justice 2004

• Young offenders dealt with more quickly
• Young Offenders more likely to be involved in
  reparation of some kind
• Youth Justice Board seen as effective
• However
• Black and mixed race young offenders increasingly
  likely to receive custodial sentences
• Schools, social services, health, substance
  misuse services and housing agencies should be
  more directly involved with young offenders and
  in preventing them from offending in the first
  place.

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Anti-social Behaviour Agenda

• Majority of ASBOs made against under 18s (many
  more with Acceptable Behaviour Contracts) an
  expanding youth justice net
• A final warning, or a chance to crank up the use
  of custody
• Conditions set unrealistically high
• Breaches expected
• Custody resulting in around ½ breaches (2003)
• Folk devils Hoodies / Yobs / Feral Children
• dehumanised and social isolated
• justifies a growing punitive response

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Summary Deconstructing the Youth / Crime Link

• Youth crime is highly visible
• Street crime
• More easily detected
• Youth (crime) is demonized a history of moral
  panics
• Youth as victims of crime
• Much youth victimisation is hidden in home,
  mineralized, or dealt with outside the CJS
• High levels of reported victimisation
• Youth as a problematic stage in life