Youth and Crime

Understanding Criminology

Dan Ellingworth

Tuesday 18 April 2023

Lecture Outline

• Youth Culture

• Patterns of Youth Offending

• Formal Responses to Juvenile Crime

• Deconstructing the Youth / Crime link

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

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

Youth as a Perpetual Problem

• Geoffrey Pearson “Hooligan: a history of respectable fears”

• Common complaint is that young people’s behaviour is worse than 20 or 30 years ago

• Reality: complaints of irresponsible youth is ever present throughout history

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

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

“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

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

Proportion of 10- to 25-year-olds offending in the last 12 months (2005 OCJS)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25Age

Per

cen

tag

e

Male

Female

• Young men offend at higher rates than young women

• Evidence, though, that gender differential narrowing

• “Peak age of offending” lower for women

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

Recent trends in Youth Offending

• Self-report offending (OCJS 2003 -> 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

Recent Trends in Youth Justice

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%

Recent trends in Youth Justice

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

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

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

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

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 effectiveHowever• 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.

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

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