Book Review: Crime and Justice
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225413520364 |
| Author | Janet Jamieson |
| Published date | 01 April 2014 |
| Date | 01 April 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Youth Justice
2014, Vol. 14(1) 100 –105
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225413520364
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Book Reviews
Banks C, Youth, Crime and Justice, Routledge, Abingdon, 2013, Pb £26.99,
ISBN 978-0-415-78124-4.
Reviewed by: Janet Jamieson, School of Humanities and Social Science, Liverpool John
Moores University, UK.
Banks’ book provides a scholarly and internationally contextualized account of a range of
issues and debates relevant to youth crime and youth justice. The analysis is presented
over 10 chapters combining theoretical overviews alongside empirical evidence and prac-
tical examples in an attempt to ‘convey a powerful sense of the experience of juvenile
justice’ (p. 1). One of the major strengths of the book is the fact that it draws on primary
theoretical and empirical sources to encourage readers to critically explore the intersec-
tions of social, political, cultural and economic factors to youth crime and justice. This
strategy is usefully supported by the inclusion of both notes and a list of references for
each chapter, which signpost the curious reader to a range of supplementary sources.
The first three chapters introduce Banks’ key concerns which are returned to through-
out this volume, namely the social construction of juvenile delinquency, how criminology
has sought to explain youth crime and how the state has responded. The introduction
focuses on the 19th century and the contributions that developments in education and rec-
reation and in relation to the governance of family life and personal morality, have made
to ‘creating norms to regulate youthful behaviour’ (p. 4) and to constructing the juvenile
delinquent. Then, on the basis that an understanding of why crime occurs is a necessary
precursor to developing strategies to address it, Chapter 2 provides a solid and accessible
overview of a range of mainstream theories of juvenile delinquency. These include strain,
social learning, control and labelling theories, alongside a consideration of feminist con-
tributions to criminology. Chapter 3 traces the development of institutions for juvenile
delinquents in the United States. Of particular interest here is Banks’ use of qualitative
studies to examine the power relations within these institutions and the strategies juve-
niles enact to resist these. She concludes that such qualitative studies ‘attest to the super-
ficiality and pointlessness of many youth treatment programs’ (p. 70).
Chapters 4 and 5 address questions of diversity and equality. Chapter 4 explores the
gendered nature of youth crime and juvenile justice and asserts the need to better under-
stand how ‘gender is performed in the context of offending’ and to address the sexism and
paternalism inherent to juvenile justice which renders it a ‘problematic site for gender
specific services’ for girls and young women (p. 98). Chapter 5 examines the social,
520364YJJ0010.1177/1473225413520364Youth JusticeBook Reviews
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