Institute of Criminology Public Seminars: ‘Comparative Youth Justice Research: inter-national, national and intra-national frames – Professor Barry Goldson

Speaker: Professor Barry Goldson, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool.

Researchers are increasingly attempting to identify and comprehend inter-national (even global) trends in criminal justice generally, and youth justice more particularly. This seminar will review such developments – especially the seductive nature of grand narratives – and expose them to critique. It will be argued that the complex, contradictory and/or profoundly inconsistent nature of youth justice (over both time and space) defies generalized accounts. Reforms at a national level can take radical and unanticipated turns. Moreover, by drawing on the emergent findings from a three-year Australian Research Council-funded project on comparative youth penality, a case will be made that variations within nation state borders (intra-national) may be as great, or even greater, than some differences between nation states (inter-national). In this sense taking the national (let alone the inter-national and/or the global) as the basic unit of youth justice policy and practice analysis becomes highly questionable.

This seminar starts at 5.30pm,and will be held in Seminar Room B3, Institute of Criminology, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA. A drinks reception in the basement foyer will follow this seminar for attendees

The IoC Public Seminar Series is open to all interested in attending, with no ticket required. If you wish to be added to the seminar mailing list, please contact: Joanne Garner, on:jf225@cam.ac.uk