Willan Publishing - Understanding Youth Offending

'This is an exceptional " tour-de-force" of a book written by two experienced RFR practitioners... RFR does not, at first glance, appear to be a subject to get the heart pumping, but Case and Haines have produced an excellent, comprehensive and passionately written (with a dash of wit) text. It offers a cogent and balanced account of RFR that deserves to become the seminal text in the field.'
- Ian Paylor (Lancaster University)
'Constructions of "risk" cut deep into policy responses and practice developments in the contemporary youth justice sphere. As such, there is a pressing need to subject "risk"-based rationalities to critical scrutiny. Case and Haines do just that. Understanding Youth Offending provides the most rigorous analysis of "risk" discourses currently available.'
- Professor Barry Goldson (The University of Liverpool)

'This is the first systematic critical review of risk factor research and therefore the whole edifice of youth justice work employed in the US and UK that is based on this research. As such it may well contribute to bringing the whole edifice crumbling down because of the ways in which the book forensically dissects and successfully exposes the shaky foundations on which this edifice is built. At the very least, the authors provide plenty of reasons why the evidence for current youth justice assessment and intervention should be treated with considerable caution. This is an important and necessary book. All youth justice academics, practitioners and managers should take note.'
- Dr Colin Webster (Reader in Criminology, Leeds Metropolitan University)
'This important book provides a lucid historical survey of risk-focused research in the delinquency area, examining the key methods and findings of the major longitudinal studies. Even more valuably, it subjects the now hegemonic risk factors prevention paradigm to thorough, much-needed criticism. The survey is informative and sophisticated and the critique is sustained, incisive and powerfully-argued. The authors achieve the not insignificant feat of remaining judiciously balanced, but at the same time essentially relevant to contemporary debates in youth justice theory and practice.'
- Dr Paul O'Mahony (Trinity College, Dublin, author of The Irish War on Drugs (2008) and editor of Criminal Justice in Ireland (2008))

This book aims to provide an understanding of youth offending and policy and practice responses, particularly the risk-focused approaches that have underpinned much recent academic research, youth justice policy and interventions designed to reduce and prevent problem behaviour. There has been growing concern, however, on the part of critical criminologists and others, about the theoretical, epistemological, methodological and ethical bases of risk-focused research with young people. They have pointed particularly to the overly-deterministic and prescriptive nature of the risk factor paradigm.

This book aims to meet the need for an exploration of youth justice and youth offending which takes account of the origins and contemporary manifestations of risk-focused work with young people. It analyses the influence of concepts of risk upon policy development in both England and Wales as well as internationally, highlighting tensions between the proponents of risk factor research and methodological and ethical criticisms of the risk factor paradigm. It will be essential reading for anybody wishing to understand risk factor explanation of crime, contemporary youth justice policy and responses to offending behaviour.

Understanding Youth Offending

Risk factor research, policy and practice

Stephen Case (Swansea University) and Kevin Haines (Swansea University)