A Political Ecology of Youth and Crime - by A France & D Bottrell & D Armstrong (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book proposes a new conceptual framework for theorizing young people's relationship with crime. It emerges from a critique of the narrow approach advocated by developmental criminology and argues for an analysis that recognizes and includes the important contribution that the young themselves can make to the theorizing and understanding of their relationship with crime. Explicitly using the voices of a group of working class young people who are defined as "a social problem," this approach emphasis's how criminal identities and pathways are strongly influenced by the interactions embedded in political ecological systems and relationships. Drawing upon the work of the social psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this book explores young people's "nested" and "political" ecological relationships with crime. The Political Ecology of Youth and Crime examines the impacts of these relationships through an empirical investigation of the important "places" and "spaces" in young people's lives; in their social relationships with peers and family members; and within formal institutional systems such as education, youth justice and social care. This book makes an important new contribution to how we understand the relationship between youth and crime in the contexts of sociology, criminology, social psychology and education."--Publisher's website.

Book Synopsis

This book explores young people's 'nested' and 'political' ecological relationships with crime through an empirical investigation of the important 'places' and 'spaces' in young people's lives; in their social relationships with peers and family members; and within formal institutional systems such as education, youth justice and social care.

Review Quotes

"This is an imaginative, well-researched book that sets a new agenda for criminology. Building on a solid empirical foundation of research focused on pathways into and out of crime, the authors develop a theory of political ecology to provide an enhanced understanding of young peoples involvement in crime. This approach successfully moves beyond accounts focused on individual level factors, providing a more holistic picture of young people in difficult circumstances. This is a book that deserves to be read by anyone who has an interest in youth and crime." - Professor Andy Furlong, University of Glasgow, UK

"This book makes a much-needed departure from developmental criminologies to provide an understanding of young people's relationships with crime at a time when developmental ways of thinking about young offending heavily permeate the structure and function of youth justice systems [...] a must-read for youth justice practitioners and policymakers who want to know more about the material outcomes that youth justice and school supervision processes can create for young people. I would also recommend this text to academics teaching youth justice and setting readings for their courses." - Youth Studies Australia

"The book is engagingly written and appropriately sympathetic to the subjects whose voices it records and attempts to understand [...] It is successful too in developing a 'nested political ecology' that illuminates understanding of youth and crime."

- British Journal of Criminology

"This book is a far cry from many of the 'how to do youth justice' books that crowd the shelves and reading lists of youth

offending team trainers [...] For all that it should be required reading I suspect the authors will be satisfied that it is simply rewarding." - Children and Society

About the Author

DOROTHY BOTTRELL is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia. She worked in secondary teaching, juvenile justice, youth and community work before taking up an academic post in 2007. Dorothy is Convenor of the University of Sydney Network on Childhood and Youth Research and co-editor of Schools, Communities and Social Inclusion (Palgrave, 2011) and Communities and Change (2008).
DERRICK ARMSTRONG is Professor of Education and is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research has focussed on issues of social inclusion and exclusion in education and the ways in which disadvantage and 'deviance' are identified and managed by professionals, social agencies and institutions working with children and young people. He is author, co-author and editor of eight books and monographs. His most recent publication is Inclusive Education: International Policy and Practice (2010) with A.C. Armstrong and I. Spandagou.
ALAN FRANCE is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He has, over the past 20 years, been researching and writing on youth related issues. He set up and established the International Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth (CSCY) at the University of Sheffield in 2002 and was Director of the Centre for Social Policy Research (CRSP) at Loughborough University (2006 - 2010). He haswritten extensively on youth policy, risk, citizenship, and youth crime and has a number of publications including Understanding Youth in Late Modernity (2007) and Pathways and Crime Prevention (2007).