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Recognising current, significant rates of youth sexual violence and abuse (YSVA) and the need for more comprehensive prevention approaches to combat this social issue, new approaches are required to ensure that agency is given to the people who are most affected and who know their lives the best. This paper aims to report a youth-led (Young Voices United [YVU] Committee) participatory design approach aimed at delivering the highest level of engagement to understand what people agree is needed to reduce YSVA in their own communities.

The seven-step co-design (Trischler et al., 2019) process was implemented following ethical clearance. Over five months, 13 group co-design sessions involving 102 young people aged 12–25 years, 17 parents/caregivers (including young mums) and 9 teacher/guidance officers were conducted. Purposive sampling was undertaken to ensure that young people who had previously experienced YSVA or were most at risk of experiencing YSVA were overrepresented. Convenience sampling was used to gain wider community involvement in co-design. Four sessions were facilitated by YVU members, who were aged between 12 and 25 years, and more than 66 people helped the design team. Inductive thematic analysis identified emergent themes across completed co-design sessions.

New ideas and solutions to prevent YSVA can be identified by young people who have previously experienced violence, carers, other young people and community members. A core finding in this study is the need for positive relationship role models and an enhanced understanding of consent. Education and training, a community promotional campaign, sector involvement, capacity-building and consideration of the unique needs of different target audiences were key ideas emerging from youth-led co-design. The YVU Committee provided recommendations for resource prioritisation.

This youth-led co-design process empowered the community. Project stakeholders have since formed partnerships won funding and used that funding to co-design and trial a new programme aiming to provide a safe haven for young people at risk of YSVA. The pilot programme delivers a safe and supportive environment for young people delivered at a time when it is needed most. Other geographical areas are now seeking to replicate the programme. The co-design processes and tools detailed in this study can be adapted to the design of programmes for those already engaged with the youth justice system and should be considered as part of a public health approach to effectively prevent and respond to YSVA and other youth crimes.

This paper advances understanding, providing a practical approach that ensures youth views are given weight [audience and influence described in Lundy’s (2007) participatory framework]. This paper explains how the YVU Committee, established at the commencement of the project, oversaw the community co-design effort, which followed Trischler et al.’s (2019) seven-step co-design process. Ideas were generated, and consensus views were consolidated, delivering the highest level of engagement according to Willmott et al.’s (2022) methodology, agent of change, training and engagement taxonomy. The participatory design method led to high levels of community engagement, and the success of the project is attributed to the establishment of the YVU Committee and stakeholder support.

The study aims to examine the effectiveness of socially available measures such as concessive messaging, deradicalizing messaging, punishment, and reward in deradicalization, which remains theoretically debatable and empirically unclear and concern social policymakers.

This study surveyed 4,385 Chinese youths in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, to clarify the effectiveness.

Results show that receiving concessive messages about radicalism raised radicalism in 2020. Meanwhile, receiving deradicalization messages and rewards reduced radicalism. Receiving punishments for radicalism reduced radicalism when radicalism in 2019 had been high.

These results support social learning theory and imply its usefulness for deradicalization. That is, deradicalization can rely on messaging countering as opposed to conceding to radicalism and reinforcement for deradicalization and against radicalism.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on crime has been highly variable. One possible source of variation runs indirectly through the impact that the pandemic had on groups tasked with preventing and responding to crime. Here, this paper aims to examine the impact of the pandemic on the activities undertaken by front-line workers in the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD).

The authors use both autoregressive integrated moving average modeling and a regression-based event study design to identify changes in GRYD Community Intervention Worker proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities induced by the onset of the City of Los Angeles “safter-at-home” lockdown.

Analyses show that the proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities either remained stable or increased with the onset of the lockdown.

While the City of Los Angeles exempted GRYD’s Community Intervention Workers from lockdown restrictions, there was no guarantee that proactive peacemaking and violence interruption activities would continue unchanged. The authors conclude that these vital functions were indeed resilient in the face of major disruptions to daily life presented by the pandemic. However, the causal connection between stability in Community Intervention Worker activities and gang-related crime remains to be evaluated.

Knife crime and serious violent crime (SVC) among youth has been growing at an alarming rate in the UK (Harding and Allen, 2021). Community and school-based intervention and prevention services to tackle knife crime are being developed with some evaluation; however, these are independent and of varied quality and rigour. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to record the approaches being developed and synthesise existing evidence of the impact and effectiveness of programmes to reduce knife crime. In addition, the complex factors contributing to knife crime and SVC are discussed.

A systematic approach was used to conduct this knife crime intervention evidence review using two search engines and four databases. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure focus and relevance. The results of searches and decisions by the research team were recorded at each stage using Preferred Reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA).

Some evidence underpins the development of services to reduce knife crime. Much of the evidence comes from government funded project reports, intervention and prevention services reports, with few studies evaluating the efficacy of intervention programmes at present. Some studies that measured immediate impact in line with the programme’s aims were found and demonstrated positive results.

This systematic review specifically synthesised the evidence and data derived from knife crime and weapon carrying interventions and preventions, integrating both grey and published literature, with a novel discussion that highlights the importance of outcome evaluations and issues with measuring the success of individual level interventions and their contributions to the overall reduction of violence.

Though prosocial attributes are linked to positive outcomes among justice-involved adolescents and are a mainstay of numerous interventions, few measures have been specifically designed to evaluate prosocial functioning within this population. Although multiple instruments measuring aspects of prosocial behavior exist, these instruments were not designed to measure prosocial behaviors among youth in juvenile justice settings. This study aims to provide a preliminary validation of a new measure of prosocial attributes (the Prosocial Status Inventory – PSI), which was designed to comprehensively evaluate in greater depth the prosocial functioning of urban, justice-involved youth.

Youth (n = 51) were recruited as part of a larger study and were participants in a community-based mentoring program in a large, urban county in the Southern USA. Youth completed the PSI at baseline prior to their participation in the community-based mentoring program. The authors obtained follow-up data on recidivism from the county juvenile justice department.

PSI scores were positively related to a lower rate of recidivism and a decrease in offending frequency over a 12-month follow-up period.

The current findings complement previous work, suggesting that prosocial attributes are measurable and related to important outcomes among justice-involved youth and support the utility of strengths-based treatment approaches. Moreover, it provides preliminary evidence of the utility of a new self-report measure to assess these traits within a juvenile justice population.

This paper aims to explore how peer support can support a combined Child First, trauma-informed and restorative approach for youth justice. While other scholars have identified clashes between these approaches, particularly between Child First and restorative approaches, a focus on reparative practice with peers has been under-explored as a more child-centred model for reparation-focused work.

We draw on qualitative data from interviews and surveys undertaken with young people and parents/caregivers in a London youth offending service (YOS). The data was part of a broader mixed-methods study in the YOS that used observational methods alongside surveys and interviews to evaluate the effectiveness of its model of practice. Peer support emerged as a theme.

Participants expressed the desire to see young people working and volunteering in the YOS and felt this would help make it a safe and non-threatening space. Young people who had completed their time with the YOS saw themselves as role models with the insight and skills to support others. These young people expressed a strong desire to work in the YOS and, in some cases, to develop long-term careers supporting young people.

Our research challenges the notion that young people who have been involved in crime struggle to empathise, providing rich examples of their empathic understanding for peers. Peer support opportunities could offer a reconceptualisation of restorative practice that is Child First and trauma-informed. Such opportunities would benefit both the young people being supported and those offering support, building a co-produced approach that is directly informed by the expressed needs and desires of the young people.

This study explores the applicability of Anderson's (1999) code of the street framework to an Asian context by examining the relationship between residents' perceptions of police ineffectiveness, nationality, and street codes in foreigner-concentrated areas in South Korea.

The authors used survey data from 1,865 residents of diverse nationalities living in 20 foreigner-concentrated areas in South Korea. Mixed-effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and moderation analysis were used to examine (1) the association between residents' perceptions of police ineffectiveness and their street codes and (2) how this association varies across nationality groups.

The study findings overall indicated that higher resident perceptions of police as ineffective tended to correspond with greater levels of street codes. However, the interaction analysis results found that this relationship was conditioned by nationality. Specifically, perceptions of police ineffectiveness were associated with greater levels of street codes among foreign residents, particularly Korean-Chinese residents, whereas this was not the case among Korean residents.

The relationship between perceptions of the police and street codes described by Anderson (1999) has primarily been examined in the context of the U.S. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to explore the link between residents' perceptions of the police and street codes by different nationality groups within an Asian setting.

The purpose of this paper is to consolidate and evaluate the available research on animal abuse recidivism.

A narrative review of the animal abuse literature was conducted. Articles were included if they provided data/estimates of the rates of recidivism, findings regarding the static, dynamic and/or protective factors associated with animal abuse recidivism and available risk assessment tools, specifically for use with individuals who have a history of animal abuse.

The literature review highlighted high rates of reoffending amongst those who have harmed animals. Many risk and protective factors associated with animal abuse were common to the wider offending behaviour literature (e.g. antisocial attitudes, relationship issues), but more robust research is needed to highlight any distinct characteristics. Lastly, the review reports two risk assessment tools designed specifically for this offending group.

Clinicians and criminal justice personnel base their sentencing, detention and treatment decisions, at least in part, on the recidivism literature. This review provides a consolidation of the evidence base as an aide memoire for practitioners.

History of animal abuse is a risk factor for future animal harm specifically, and interpersonal violence more broadly. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first literature review that presents the key research evidence on risk/protective factors and relevant risk assessment tools that can inform intervention planning to reduce risk of reoffending towards animals and humans alike when practitioners encounter clients who have a history of harming animals.

Based on an extensive literature review, this chapter outlines key developments in global health and research during the last century with focus on the emergence of violence and child maltreatment as international public health priorities. Violence has been known to humans for millennia, but only in the late 1990s was it recognised as a global public health issue. Every year, an estimated 1 billion children are exposed to trauma, loss, abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment takes a social and economic toll on countries. Research initiated in 1985 found child maltreatment to be associated with increased disease, disability and premature death in adult survivors. The global availability of data on child maltreatment is, however, sporadic with low validity and reliability. Few global experts have consulted and involved the survivors of child maltreatment, as the experts by experience, in their attempts to provide a more comprehensive picture of reality. Youth and adult survivors of child maltreatment are often traumatised by the experience, and it is important to use trauma-informed approaches to prevent re-traumatisation. Participatory and inclusive research on child maltreatment is only in its infancy. There is a need for more inclusive research, designed by survivors for survivors, hereby strengthening local capacity building and informing policymakers from the bottom up. This chapter reviews lessons learnt and provides recommendations for how to enhance the participation and inclusion of the experts by experience in research on child maltreatment.

Using data from a feminist discourse analysis of comments on Facebook news articles, this research outlines backlash and regulatory practices directed towards youth activists Greta Thunberg, X González and Malala Yousafzai. A conceptual framework of semiotic violence highlights how these comments function to silence, delegitimise, vilify and punish sociopolitically active girls who challenge the status quo. The first mode of semiotic violence works to symbolically annihilate girl activists by silencing or rendering their political contributions invisible. The most obvious manifestation of this is instructing girls to shut up and go away. Additionally, their activism is ignored by refusals to acknowledge it as appropriate through suggestions they focus on gender-normative activities, such as domestic chores, playing with dolls and finding boyfriends. Undermining girls’ agency by describing them as puppets, mouthpieces, script readers, pawns and tools is also common. Here, girls’ contributions are rendered invisible through implications that they are being brainwashed and manipulated. The second mode of semiotic violence reinforces ideologies that girls are not politically competent and punishes them for being outspoken. This includes explicitly discrediting girls’ knowledge and abilities. Regulating their emotionality is also prevalent. This is consistent with Liberal political theory which justified women’s exclusion from public life by associating men with reason and women with emotion. Finally, insults degrade them for transgressing into a space demarcated as an adult and masculine realm. The semiotic violence directed towards these ‘girl power’ figures highlights that many people do not believe girls have the right to assert their sociopolitical opinion.