Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in the Non-Western World
Paul C. Friday and Xin Ren, editors| | | ISBN: 978-1-881798-67-5 $35.00 |
| 2006/253 pages
A CriminalJusticePress Project
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DESCRIPTION
Why has youth crime been rising in the developing countries, and how well have their juvenile justice systems responded to this trend? This anthology profiles delinquency rates and juvenile justice systems in chapters on China, India, Japan, Macao, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey. Each nation's distinctive response to youth crime is described in the contexts of its indigenous culture and customary law, and of its historical encounters with external legal traditions: the latter include common law, civil law, Islamic law, socialist law, and Asian philosophies.
The authors link the growth of juvenile crime in the developing world to the emerging cultural emphases on individualism and materialism, which are viewed as byproducts of modlernization. In their introduction, the editors also highlight commonalities and differences among the juvenile justice systems profiled, including their levels of compliance with international standards for juvenile justice.
"A valuable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners as it provides examples of both common and unique aspects of juvenile justice in non-Western countries. Moreover, it shows how countries are relying on informal social control mechanisms while maintaining a 'child-friendly' formal system."—Sesha Kethineni, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
"A useful contribution to the literature and a helpful text for students, academics and others.... It also indirectly begins to shape a more global approach to understanding juvenile justice systems and thus the articulation of a more global research/policy/change agenda."—Kevin Haines, Asian Criminology
"It will appeal to scholars of comparative law, criminology and sociology.... The key commendation for the volume is that most scholars would probably know very little about the majority of the juvenile justice systems included and in this regard it provides a most worthy contribution."—M. Quraishi, International Journal of the Sociology of Law