Search results

How delinquent, dependent/neglected, and abused children are treated by criminal justice agencies is a concern that crosses geographical boundaries. Do the courts sentence juveniles too leniently or, conversely, too harshly? Around the world some of the most serious questions involve the placement of juveniles in penal institutions. There are some clearly recognized problems. First, many countries still house delinquents and non-delinquent children in the same institutions, despite nation-wide reforms or legislation specifically prohibiting such practices. Second, many juveniles, regardless of their status, are held in jails and detention facilities built or administered for adult populations that greatly outnumber the younger inmates. Third, efforts at reform, while ambitious, have been ineffective in changing objectionable practices and/or aiding children in need. Fourth, left unresolved is the question as to whether the problems noted above in developed countries are present to a greater or lesser degree in developing countries.

In this chapter, I examine the juvenile justice system and incarceration practices in Turkey. The study focuses on the basic agents and the legislation of the juvenile justice system and the current status of juvenile incarceration. This study also reveals the problems of the functionality of the system. I conclude with policy recommendations for successful implementation of the juvenile justice system and prevention of recidivism.

I discuss concepts in the juvenile justice system of Turkey and highlight the function and problems of each agent of the system. I focus on problems of the juvenile justice system and its reflection on high rates of recidivism of juveniles.

Overall, the leniency of the juvenile justice system is associated with high rates of juvenile recidivism in Turkey. Infrastructure insufficiencies have limited the standardization of services and practices. The delayed response and perceived leniency of the justice system promoted juveniles’ continuation on a crime trajectory.

Few scholars have examined the functionality of the juvenile justice system, its problems, and its reflection on high rates of juvenile recidivism in the Turkish case.

In this chapter, I examine stories that foster care youth tell to legislatures, courts, policymakers, and the public to influence policy decisions. The stories told by these children are analogized to victim truth testimony, analyzed as a therapeutic, procedural, and developmental process, and examined as a catalyst for systemic accountability and change. Youth stories take different forms and appear in different media: testimony in legislatures, courts, research surveys or studies; opinion editorials and interviews in newspapers or blog posts; digital stories on YouTube; and artistic expression. Lawyers often serve as conduits for youth storytelling, translating their clients’ stories to the public. Organized advocacy by youth also informs and animates policy development. One recent example fosters youth organizing to promote “normalcy” in child welfare practices in Florida, and in related federal legislation.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a term used to describe the pathway traveled by students from public schools to incarceration in secure juvenile detention and correctional programs. It begins with students who are marginalized by the education system because of their academic and behavioral issues. The pipeline leads from school failure and disciplinary exclusion to involvement with the juvenile justice system. Youth who are ethnic minorities (especially those who are African-American or Hispanic) as well as those with educational disabilities (especially those with learning and behavioral disorders) are significantly overrepresented in data sets representing key points along the pipeline (e.g., students with poor academic achievement, high rates of suspension, expulsion, and dropout) as well as their high rates of incarceration. From his personal perspective and experience with the juvenile justice system, the author attempts to explicate the pipeline, and to describe efforts to impact it positively.

This chapter asks whether the United States would benefit from establishment of a national independent children’s rights institution (ICRI). This chapter begins with insights into why the United States has not established a national ICRI. Although about half of the 50 US states have set up children’s rights ombudspersons, most of these state-level institutions do not focus on rights of all children and their efforts are not coordinated. This chapter discusses what ICRIs do and what their essential qualities are, then seeks to demonstrate that an ICRI will meet needs of American children and their rights. This chapter suggests that a national US ICRI can participate in international activities around children’s rights, which will advance rights and interests of American children.

Children in many societies are often seen as immature in issues and therefore should be dependent on adults for provision of basic needs participation. This gives the impression that it is only at adulthood that members of society can make contributions to personal, family and societal development. This is particularly so in African societies. Most African societies consider children as omo kekere (small people/children) and inexperienced people and therefore should be under watch and socialisation of adults who often compromise their rights particularly to participation even when the United Nations’ advocacy guaranteeing the right of children to participate in decision making and other issues concerning them exists. This chapter therefore examines the real experiences of children in a traditional but modernising setting of Ibadan, Nigeria. This is a very relevant research setting since traditional and modern socio-cultural values and forces moderate child rights. Hence, this chapter exposes ways and manners children are treated and, possibly, negotiate cultural systems in the contexts of families to exist within family rules and cultural ethos that define their belongingness and participation in decision making and associated issues. This chapter is placed within the policy framework of implementation of UN Child Rights Charter and Nigerian Child Rights Act which have been found to be largely ineffective in most African societies and Nigeria. This chapter benefits from many years of primary insights and scholarly engagements with children’s experiences and participation in families in Africa. Families with children within the ages of 5–10 in Ibadan were also systematically and extendedly observed. In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 children in their family environments after getting informed consent of their parents. Findings show that culture, traditions and institutionalised gerontocracy remain negatively formidable and hold sway in perpetuating systemic child disempowerment and alienation in families. This chapter provides theoretical, professional and policy settings and environments of child rights and childhood in Nigeria with implications for Africa and globally.

Using administrative, longitudinal data on felony arrests in Florida, we exploit the discontinuous increase in the punitiveness of criminal sanctions at 18 to estimate the deterrence effect of incarceration. Our analysis suggests a 2% decline in the log-odds of offending at 18, with standard errors ruling out declines of 11% or more. We interpret these magnitudes using a stochastic dynamic extension of Becker’s (1968) model of criminal behavior. Calibrating the model to match key empirical moments, we conclude that deterrence elasticities with respect to sentence lengths are no more negative than − 0 . 13 for young offenders.

Considerations of the legal rights of incarcerated juveniles are often concerned with the myriad ways in which due process rights are circumscribed, abridged, or undermined by the operations of the juvenile court (e.g., Berkheiser, 2016; Cleary, 2017; Feld, 1999; Rapisarda & Kaplan, 2016). Studies of youth legal consciousness have additionally sought to explore the role of media, legal status, court experiences, and even parents in the formation of youth attitudes about the justice system (e.g., Abrego, 2011; Brisman, 2010; Greene, Sprott, Madon, & Jung, 2010; Pennington, 2017). This chapter builds on this work by exploring the way rights shaped the everyday lives of incarcerated youth. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in a juvenile hall, this chapter explores three different moments outside of a formal legal context where the invocation of due process rights limited the self-expression and exploration of incarcerated youth. In each of these cases, the invocation of protecting due process rights by adults served to stifle youth efforts to remake juvenile hall as a place open and receptive to their needs. These three moments demonstrate that rights project a particular legal vision onto a world that does not neatly conform to the reality in which youth lived. For these reasons, the consideration of legal rights for youth must also consider how these rights can forestall the very transformation in circumstances that many youth seek.