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Course

Juvenile Justice - LAWS8105

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Kensington Campus

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Pre-requisite: Academic Program must be 9200 or 9210 or 9230 or 5740 or 9285 or 5285 or 9235 or 5235 or 9220 or 5750.

Excluded: JURD7505

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

In Australia and throughout much of the Western world, few criminological issues attract greater concern and censure than juvenile/youth crime. In many jurisdictions it is increasingly claimed that identifiable groups of children and young people are ‘out of control’, with populist discourse and media reporting even implying ‘crisis’ conditions. Alongside such concern and censure, contemporary developments in law, policy and practice developments are placing greater emphasis upon strategies and modes of intervention ostensibly designed to ‘break the cycle’ and, it is claimed, offset young people’s progress towards disorder, anti-social behaviour, crime, gang activity and/or violence. This course will reflect upon and critically evaluate the legitimacy of such developments.
  • The historical origins and contemporary manifestations of discrete juvenile/youth justice systems will be examined;
  • The true nature and extent of youth offending and the patterning of youth crime will be surveyed;
  • The multiple competing imperatives that comprise youth justice law, policy and practice including: ‘welfare’, ‘justice’, ‘informalism’, ‘treatment’, ‘rights’, ‘responsibilities’, ‘prevention’, ‘restoration’, ‘remoralisation’, ‘rehabilitation’, ‘retribution’ and ‘punishment’ will be analysed;
  • The roles and functions of the constituent agencies that make-up modern juvenile/youth systems will be explored;
  • The module will be underpinned by comparative analyses at local, national and transnational levels and the application of international human rights standards, treaties, rules, conventions and guidelines in the juvenile/youth justice sphere.


LLM Specialisation

Recommended Prior Knowledge

None

Course Objectives

The course is underpinned by four core objectives:
  • To provide a critical overview of the historical development of state policy responses to youth crime (in Australia and elsewhere) and to explore socio-legal and criminological and conceptualisations of ‘youth’, ‘crime’, ‘criminalisation’ and ‘justice’;
  • To analyse the competing priorities and underpinning discourses that inform juvenile/youth justice law, policy and practice;
  • To explore the application of juvenile/youth justice law and policy through the interventions of state agencies, and to consider the principal consequences of such interventions for ‘young offenders’, the management of youth crime and the regulation and governance of young people;
  • To apply comparative and international human-rights frameworks to the study of juvenile/youth justice.

Course Outcomes

At the conclusion of this course students will have:
  • An understanding of the trajectory of law, policy and practice responses to youth crime (in Australia and elsewhere) from the early nineteenth century to the present and a familiarity with key debates within juvenile/youth justice and youth criminology including a critical grasp of the politics of juvenile/youth justice and social control.
  • An ability to critically analyse the competing priorities, tensions and paradoxes intrinsic to ‘welfare’, ‘justice’ and ‘retributive’/‘punitive’ approaches to youth crime and juvenile/youth justice.
  • An appreciation of the inter-face between youth justice law and policy and state intervention juvenile/youth justice practice.
  • A capacity to apply comparative and human-rights frameworks to the study of juvenile/youth justice.

Assessment

The course will be assessed in three core ways: class participation (comprising 10% of the total mark); seminar presentation and paper (comprising 30% of the total mark) research-based essay/assignment (comprising 60% of the total mark).

Course Texts

There is no set text but a set of course readings will be available from the UNSW bookshop.

Order from UNSW Bookshop

Recommend Reading

Cunneen, C. and White, R. (2011) Juvenile Justice: Youth and Crime in Australia. Fourth Edition. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Goldson, B. and Muncie, J. (eds) (2006) Youth Crime and Justice. London: SAGE

Muncie, J. and Goldson, B. (eds) (2006) Comparative Youth Justice. London: SAGE.

Resources

Refer to Course Outline provided by lecturer at the beginning of session.
Basser Steps

Study Levels

Undergraduate Study Postgraudate Study Postgraduate Research Study Non-Award Study

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