Responding to Youth Crime: Toward Radical Criminal Justice Partnerships

Source: (2003) Sydney: Hawkins Press, 228p.

In this book, Paul Omojo presents a critique of the responses of criminal justice agencies to youth crime and a vision of new ways to respond to youth crime. Omojo’s basic point is that current ways of responding to youth crime are counterproductive. While criminal justice systems may not be intended to damage youth and “trapâ€? them into a life of crime, the consequences of such systems are devastating on youth and have the effect of setting them on criminal pathways. In contrast to this assessment, Omojo offers a vision of criminal justice agencies becoming pro-active partners in societal efforts that guide youth at risk and young offenders into productive citizenship. Vital to this vision is the need for criminal justice agencies to break out of their traditional molds, to transform their orientation both in philosophy and practice towards a radical preventive partnership model. To establish his critique and delineate his vision, Omojo covers the following topics in detail: criminal justice thinking about youth; youth and images of youth; the traditional criminal justice response to youth crime; trends and costs of the traditional response; changing perspectives in criminal justice, especially as regards partnership; specific examples from several countries of criminal justice partnerships; comparison of the partnership approach to the traditional response; and future directions in criminal justice prevention of youth crime.