Jobs, Not Goals: A New Agenda for Youth (From National Conference on Juvenile Justice, P 67-82, 1993, Lynn Atkinson and Sally-Anne Gerull, eds. -- See NCJ-148673)

• NCJ Number: 148680
• Author(s): K Polk
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: From proceedings of the National Conference on Juvenile Justice, held in Adelaide, Australia, September 22-24, 1992.

Annotation

This paper examines the causes of a youth underclass in contemporary Australia, its implications for juvenile crime, and policy options for dealing with delinquency in this segment of the Australian population.

Abstract

There is a major crisis imminent for many youth trapped in an economic underclass in contemporary Australia. Structural changes are closing off opportunities for movement into conventional lives as young adults. Long-term unemployment fosters a variety of new and deviant lifestyles, some of which include crime. Society can take two basic approaches to the problem of crime among the new youth underclass. One strategy is a positive, developmental approach that directly addresses the central issues of employment, education, and job training. These approaches have the advantage of providing an economic solution to what is clearly a structural economic problem. The second basic approach is to attempt to control the symptoms of youth discontent and economic disadvantage through the juvenile justice system. Whether responses to symptomatic deviant behavior are harsh and punitive or lenient and supportive, they cannot by themselves address the basic causes of youth discontent. Although many favor a public policy of harsher sentences, expanded police powers, greater use of imprisonment, or use of the new concept of reintegrative shaming, a more reasonable approach is to provide new forms of education and employment. 14 references