International Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence

Youth violence all over the globe has been identified as a major source of violence in the society. Reports hit the media houses on gang violence in schools and by young people on the streets. The cases of youth violence have been associated to increased burden of premature death, injury, and disability. There is need to understand the situation of youth violence and cannot this be considered in isolation form other problematic behaviors. There is need to understand the situation by relating it to other problems such as truancy, school dropout, drug abuse, reckless driving, and increased rate of STIs. It is important to study international juvenile justice and youth violence ton understand the factors that enhance the risk of the youth becoming perpetrators of violence and assessing the policies adopted by various countries and determine their effectiveness in preventing violence (Moon, Patton, & Rao, 2011).

Comparison between Countries

Germany

Germany is the Europe largest economy and second after Russia in terms of population. The country is very influential in the Europe’s economy, political and defense arrangements.  In Germany the case of youth violence has been found to be more rampant among the male adolescents as compared to the female. In Germany, the cases of juvenile delinquency have been studied along the line of interaction of different ethnicity and gender. The research findings have been more indicative of higher levels of violence amongst the non-German adolescents. The youths in German were found to be moved into committing acts of violence under the influence of video games (Pollich, 2012).

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, there has always been a tension between the approaches that gives priority to the welfare of children and young people engaging in violence and the advocate of justice and safeguarding of legal affairs for the children against arbitrary forms of punishment. The United Kingdom has an established Youth Justice Board, Youth Offending Teams, and redeveloping the non-custodial penalties options available to the youth court.it has been observed that the campaign established by the Labor government against antisocial behavior which saw the number under the age of fifteen sentenced to custody. The number of 25-17 aged adolescents has double in a period of ten years. United Kingdom considers the age of criminal responsibility to be ten in England and Wales while in Scotland it is eight due to existence of different juvenile system. Handling the welfare of the youth is pegged in the assumption of coming up with an intervention with an aim of meeting the needs of young people rather than punishing their deeds (Carrabine, 2010)

References

Carrabine, E. (2010). Youth Justice in the United Kingdom.

Moon, S., Patton, J., & Rao, U. (2011). An Ecological Approach to Understanding Youth Vioence: The Mediating Role of Substance Use. Journal of Human Behavior and Social Environment, 839-856.

Pollich, D. (2012). Youth Violence in Germany: Key Results and Findings. Journal for Police Science and Practice, 68-81.