Youth victimization and offending in criminology

Youth Victimization

While for many people the tendency to ascribe the status of victim to a fellow individual is often motivated by prejudicial factors such as race or gender, current research indicates that age is also a primary determinant affecting how the public and media assess victimization. Multiple studies have concluded that young people are increasingly being linked to criminality in the collective consciousness of society, and as John Muncie observes in his Youth and Crime, "dangerous youth is the cornerstone of a number of key concerns about a disordered present" (2009). As the science of victimology has evolved and contributed to academic research on the subject of crime, youth victimization has often been neglected and ignored in favor of studies seeking "the strongest possible evidence to an already worried public that there (is) something new and terrible about juvenile crime" (Newburn, 1996, p. 70). Despite a preponderance of evidence showing youth crime rates to be no higher than those of other age subsets, as well as research proving that youth are actually victimized at high rates themselves, "young people are routinely at the sharp end of & #8230; demonization" (Goldson, 2002). Young people far more likely to be considered guilty of a crime than victimized by one, and the underlying reasons perpetuating this disturbing trend must be examined through a rigorous analysis of the existing research on the subject of youth victimization.

In an time increasingly defined by the devastating consequences of global economic recession, many societies have shown no hesitation in attributing financial downturns to a youth culture which is commonly associated with idleness and lack of contribution. The current era of mandated austerity has created a "new unacceptable culture of worklessness & #8230; which readily creates 'icons of evil', fosters fears about 'us' and 'them' and erects rigid moral boundaries between the deserving and the undeserving" (Goldson, 2002). It has been consistently demonstrated that, in times of severe economic decline, adolescents and young adults become collateral damage during the fierce competition for employment and career mobility. If a demographic as expansive as a nation's youth is relegated to obscurity in terms of economic protection, there is likely to be an increase in the rate of petty crime such as theft and vandalization. Despite the wealth of evidence supporting this assertion, "the socio-economic conditions that produce youth marginalization and estrangement are no longer given central political or academic attention" (Bailleau, 1998) while the judicial system's response to youth crime grown progressively harsh.

Rather than seeking to determine the root causes of youth crime and alleviate those societal symptoms, lawmakers and other leaders have consistently decided to distribute punitive sentences to young offenders. The observation that, within "political discourse young people tend to be a perennial source of anxiety and fear [with] the "problem of crime" almost synonymous with "youth crime" (Muncie, 2003, p. 46) indicates that governments largely prefer to utilize youth as a convenient scapegoat, while neglecting to remedy the true causes of criminality within their borders. The justice systems of nearly all Western nations have responded in kind, by developing extensive networks of juvenile detention centres, youth probation systems, and other programs designed to mete out punishment to society's youngest members. This trend is astounding when one considers that, "even at moments of penal reductionism, the young offender institution, detention centre, youth custody centre, borstal, approved school, reformatory or youth prison has formed the cornerstone of youth justice against which all other interventions are measured and assessed" (Muncie, 2009, p. 282). Despite the growing tendency of judicial advocates to invoke reformatory measures such as probation, drug rehabilitation or social instruction, "there has ... persisted a strong law and order lobby which has forcibly argued that youth crime is caused by simple wickedness and that the only real punishment is that which involves incarceration" (Muncie, 2009, p. 282). While the judicial system continues to reserve its most severe punishments for its youngest offenders, the likelihood that youth victimization will be properly assessed is significantly diminished.