Youth Crime: Representations, Discourses and Data

Annotated Further Readings

Coleman, C. and Moynihan, J. (1996) Understanding Crime Data. Buckingham: Open University Press.

One of the best critical commentaries on the construction of criminal statistics.

Maguire, M. (2012) ‘Criminal statistics and the construction of crime’, in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Presents a more recent update than Coleman & Moynihan.

Bateman, T. (2006) ‘Youth crime and justice: statistical “evidence”, recent trends and responses’, in Goldson, B. and Muncie, J. (eds), Youth Crime and Justice. London: Sage.

Casts a critical eye on youth crime statistics in particular.

Hough, M. and Roberts, J. (2004) Youth Crime and Youth Justice: Public Opinion in England and Wales. Bristol: Policy Press.

Reveals the disjuncture between statistical evidence and public opinion.

Jewkes, Y. (2014) Media and Crime. London: Sage. 
The most accessible introduction to media and crime

Chapter 2 – ‘The Contruction of Crime News’

Green, D.A. (2008) When Children Kill Children: Penal Populism and Political Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A landmark text in revealing the embedded punitivness in British political discourse.

Parker, H., Aldridge, J. and Measham, F. (1998) Illegal Leisure: The Normalisation of Adolescent Recreational Drug Use. London: Routledge.

Excellent Introduction to youth drug use and the possibilities of reform

Goldson, B. (ed.) (2011) Youth in Crisis?: Gangs, Territoriality and Violence. Abingdon: Routledge.

A critical analysis of ‘gangs’ and violence.

Walklate, S. (2001) Gender, Crime and Criminal Justice. Cullompton: Willan.

A good introduction to gender and crime.

Brown, S. (2005) Understanding Youth and Crime: Listening to Youth?, 2nd edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Does more than most to force us to acknowledge that ‘youth crime’ is a product not of absent fathers, single mothers, a lack of discipline and so on but of the production and consumption of partial knowledges.

Weblinks

www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html
The main portal for criminal statistics and victim surveys in England and Wales.

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Borwse/Crime-Justice

The main portal for crime and justice statistics in Scotland.

http://thenaj.org.uk

The National Association for Youth Justice occasionally produces briefings which synthesize statistical data on youth crime and youth justice.

www.umsl.edu/~ccj/eurogang/euroganghome.htm

A collaboration of US and European Academics who have formed a ‘thematic network for comparative and multi-method research on violent youth groups’.

www.druscope.org.uk

A useful site for current statistics on drug use ad commentaries on contemporary policies.

www.mediastudies.com

A hub providing links to over a hundred international news, media studies sites, and other resources worldwide for students and researchers.

www.nationalgangcentre.gov

The National Youth Gang Centre is part of a coordinated response to America’s gang problem by the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and illustrates the centrality of concern about gangs (as opposed to youth cultures) in American law and order discourse.

www.spiked-online.com

An online critical commentary on various current affairs including media and political campaigns against youth, anti-social behaviour, crime and violence.

www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Current+Affairs/Crime/Crime+by+Type/Youth+Crime

A site that provides links to current national and provincial media coverage of issues in youth and crime.