This book provides an introduction to the main concepts and issues in juvenile justice in Australia, and provides a consolidated overview of the dynamics of youth crime and the institutions of social control. This book will be of particular interest to criminology and law students.

"Crossover" Children in the Youth Justice and Child Protection Systems explores the outcomes faced by the group of children who experience involvement with both child protection and youth justice systems across several countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Situated against a backdrop of international evidence and grounded in a two-year study with the Children’s Court in Victoria, Australia, this book presents a cohesive picture of the backgrounds, characteristics, and pathways traversed by crossover children. It presents statistical data from 300 crossover Children’s Court case files, alongside the expert evidence of 82 professionals, to generate a comprehensive picture of the lives of crossover children, and the individual and systemic challenges that they face. The book investigates the crucial question of why some children involved with child welfare systems experience particularly poor criminal justice outcomes, demonstrating how the convergence of cumulative childhood adversity, complex support needs, and systemic disadvantage produces acutely damaging outcomes for some crossover youth. It outlines the implications of the study, including how these findings might shape diversion and differential justice system responses to child protection-involved youth, and the innovative approaches adopted internationally to avert the care to custody pathway. This book is internationally relevant and will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology and law, social work, psychology, and sociology, as well as legal, welfare, and government agencies and policy developers, non-government peak bodies and services, professional probation services, case managers, health and mental health services, disability and drug treatment agencies, and others who work with both young offenders and the design and implementation of policy and legislation.

This book contains commentary on three key sentencing statutes, and on sentencing law for nine offence categories.

The Children’s Court is one of society’s most important social institutions. At the same time, it is steeped in controversy. This is in large measure due to the persistence and complexity of the problems with which it deals, namely, juvenile crime and child abuse and neglect. Despite the importance of the Children’s Court as a means of holding young people accountable for their anti-social behaviour and parents for the care of their children, it has not been the subject of close study. Certainly it has not been previously studied nationally. This book, an edited collection, is based on the findings of study that spanned the six States and two Territories of Australia. The study sought to examine the current challenges faced by the Children’s Court and to identify desirable and feasible directions for reform in each State and Territory. A further unique feature of this study is that it canvassed the views of judges and magistrates who preside over this court.

Juvenile justice has been and remains a topical issue at national and international levels. There are various standards and guidelines for administration, but six major models characterize juvenile justice systems worldwide: participatory, welfare, corporatism, modified justice, justice, and crime control. Juvenile Justice: International Perspectiv

Relevant for experienced and emerging social work and human service practitioners alike, this book explores the uniquely challenging, yet seemingly ubiquitous issue of youth violence. It provides an authentic and accessible discussion of the theories and evidence that inform practice with youth violence alongside the voices of practitioners and the young people they work with. These voices are drawn from work with the Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) program for youth violence. NNN provides a trauma-informed, culturally safe preventive-intervention for young people who use and experience violence, and specialist training for the workers who support them. The program embraces creative methods as a bridge between contemporary evidence on trauma and violence and Aboriginal healing practice. The dual focus of the program is informed and interconnected by action research involving Aboriginal Elders and community members, practitioners, and key service stakeholders, including young people with a lived experience of violence. This book is ideal for use in professional cross-disciplinary programs, such as criminology, sociology, social work, and psychology, across post-secondary, vocational, and university sectors.

Rates of female delinquency, especially for violent crimes, are increasing in most common law countries. At the same time the growth in cyber-bullying, especially among girls, appears to be a related global phenomenon.While the gender gap in delinquency is narrowing in Australia, United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, boys continue to dominate the youth who commit crime and have a virtual monopoly over sexually violent crimes. Indigenous youth continue to be vastly over-represented in the juvenile justice system in every Australian jurisdiction. The Indigenisation of delinquency is a persistent problem in other countries such as Canada and New Zealand.Young people who gather in public places are susceptible to being perceived as somehow threatening or riotous, attracting more than their share of public order policing. Professional football has been marred by repeated scandals involving sexual assault, violence and drunkenness. Given the cultural significance of footballers as role models to thousands, if not millions, of young men around the world, it is vitally important to address this problem. Offending Youth explores these key contemporary patterns of delinquency, the response to these by the juvenile justice agencies and moreover what can be done to address these problems.The book also analyses the major policy and legislative changes from the nineteenth to twenty first centuries, chiefly the shift the penal welfarism to diversion and restorative justice. Using original cases studied by Carrington twenty years ago, Offending Youth illustrates how penal welfarism criminalised young people from socially marginal backgrounds, especially Aboriginal children, children from single parent families, family-less children, state wards and young people living in poverty or in housing commission estates. A number of inquiries in Australia and the United Kingdom have since established that children committed to these institutions, supposedly for their own good, experienced systemic physical, sexual and psychological abuse during their institutionalisation. The book is dedicated to the survivors of these institutions who only now are receiving official recognition of the injustices they suffered.The underlying philosophy of juvenile justice has fundamentally shifted away from penal welfarism to embrace positive policy responses to juvenile crime, such as youth conferencing, cautions, warnings, restorative justice, circle sentencing and diversion examined in the concluding chapter.Offending Youth is aimed at a broad readership including policy makers, juvenile justice professionals, youth workers, families, teachers, politicians as well as students and academics in criminology, policing, gender studies, masculinity studies, Indigenous studies, justice studies, youth studies and the sociology of youth and deviance more generally.

Youth Justice is an ongoing project of Macquarie Legal Centre. This edition was produced in partnership with Shopfront Youth Legal Centre. It provides a practical guide for young people who come into contact with the police or the criminal justice system in NSW. Presented in a clear and jargon-free style, the book covers a broad range of topics including police interviews, police searches, the Young Offenders Act and youth justice conferences, bail, court processes, court outcomes, AVOs and dealing with unpaid fines. Aside from helping young people understand their rights, this book is an essential resource for youth workers, youth advocates, social workers, counsellors, teachers or anyone else who works to support young people.

Youth Crime, Youth Justice and Children's Courts (in NSW) provides a contemporary overview of the complex arrangements impacting youth crime, youth justice and Children's Courts. Each chapter is contributed by an expert and is written to provide clear and accessible insights of the many aspects of the system that impacts young people. The journey of a young person's first contact with police to release from custody and the elements which shape it are illuminated to provide readers with practical understanding. Features * Expert insights into the complex web of arrangements impacting youth crime, youth justice and Children's Courts * Clear and accessible guide * Suitable for practitioners and academics Related Titles * Young et al, Children and the Law in Australia, 2nd edition, 2016 * Madden et al, Institutional abuse of children: Legal remedies and redress in Australia, 2nd edition, 2023