CRIMINAL JUSTICE, YOUTH AND PROCEDURAL JUSTICE Chair: Jean Hine Chair: Jean Hine

0113 - PROCEDURAL TRADITION AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF POLICE INTERROGATIONS AND SAFEGUARDING YOUNG SUSPECTS IN THE EU

Vicky Kemp (United Kingdom)¹; John Jackson (United Kingdom)¹ 1 - University of Nottingham

The University of Maastricht has coordinated a comparative study of protections for young suspects in interrogations in five jurisdictions: the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Wales, Poland and Italy (Action grant JUST/2011-2012/JPEN/AG). Dr Vicky Kemp was involved in the empirical study conducted in England and Wales. This involved examination of police interrogations held with young suspects and conducting focus group interviews with young offenders, police interrogators, lawyers and appropriate adults. In this presentation Dr Kemp will discuss some of the issues arising out of the study, particularly around procedural safeguards for juveniles. This will include examining police interview techniques, the exercising of legal rights and the role of lawyers in interrogations. The study has implications for informing guidelines and minimum rules arising out of the proposed EU Directive on procedural safeguards for children suspected or accused in criminal proceeding (COM(2013) 822 final). Against the background of this Directive and the Directive on the Right of Access to a Lawyer, Professor Jackson considers the difficulties in reaching consensus across the member states on what the role of the lawyer should be in the course of police interrogations of young people and the implications for those who waive their right to a lawyer.

For details of this study see: Panzavolta, M., de Vocht, D., van Oosterhout, M. and Vanderhallen, M. (eds) (2015) Interrogating Young Suspects: Procedural Safeguards from a Legal Perspective and Vanderhallen, M., van Oosterhout, M., Panzavolta, M. and de Vocht, D.

99 0114 - DETERMINANTS OF POLICE PERCEPTION AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN ISTANBUL

Mine Özaşçılar (Turkey)¹; Neylan Ziyalar (Turkey)² 1 - Bahçeşehir University; 2 - Istanbul University

With the rise of community policing around the globe, much studies have started to focus on the police-community relations to improve police departments’ response to community needs.

Thus, citizens’ perception of the police has become a primary focus for scholars. It is claimed that citizens who are satisfied with the police are more likely to cooperate with the police, which may increase the police effectiveness in crime control. Much research showed that personal experiences with the police, demographic characteristics including gender, age, socio-economic status, etc., neighbourhood characteristics are correlated with the police perception, indicating that those who live in poor neighbourhood, young, negative contact with the police resulted as the low levels of satisfaction with the police. Because many of the studies conducted outside of Turkey, there is a lack of empirical evidence that measure adolescents’

perception of police in Istanbul. The main aim of the present study is to assess empirically Turkish adolescents’ police perceptions in Istanbul.

This study aims to examine the high school students’ perceptions of police in Istanbul, Turkey.

Data were analysed based on 1789 surveys conducted with Turkish adolescents attending middle and high school in Istanbul between October and December 2013. The survey instrument used to collect the data for this study was a 2- page questionnaire that consists of 49 questions and statements. Twenty items were empirically related police perception items.

The remaining questions asked about the students’ demographic characteristics, socio-economic status, social integration, and perceptions of safety in their community.

In the sample, 56, 7 percent of the respondents were girl. The average age of adolescents was approximately 12, 5. About 13 percent of them had previous contact with police. Of these 53 percent perceived their neighbourhood as safe regarding the crime. The average value on the twenty items relating to the police was 4,2 indicating that adolescents reported slightly positive perceptions of police. Girl students’ ratings of the police were significantly higher than boys which are consistent with the studies.

In general, the results showed that students who had previous contact with police rated police more favourably than those who had not contact with the police in the past. Overall, adolescents reported positive perception of police regardless of gender, neighbourhood characteristics, and background. In consistent with the previous studies, adolescents living in low-income, perceiving crime as a problem in their neighbourhoods recognize the importance of the police as a solution to crime. This research is the first to examine Turkish adolescents’

police perception in Istanbul. These findings can help the police to improve their services and promote the police-citizen relationship.

0115 - YOUNG OFFENDERS CAMPAIGNING FOR JUSTICE Jean Hine (United Kingdom)¹

1 - De Montfort University

The value of listening to service users is well established, but some voices are rarely heard, particularly in relation to criminal justice and policy development. This paper will report on the work of the U R Boss project which aimed to enable young people who were in prison or recently released to actively participate in campaigning for change in the criminal justice system. The project was managed by the Howard league for Penal Reform, an established charitable organisation which has been campaigning about prisons and criminal justice in the UK for more than 100 years. The challenges and successes of this five year project for both the organisation and the young people will be discussed, together with key lessons for any organisation wanting to work in partnership with young people with complex life histories.

0116 - IS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM PERCEIVED AS LEGITIMATE BY SENTENCED JUVENILES?

Araceli Aguilar (Spain)¹; Fátima Pérez-Jiménez (Spain)¹; José Becerra (Spain)¹ 1 - Crime Observatory, Institute of Criminology, University of Malaga

This research intends to describe how legitimacy of the juvenile justice system is perceived by those convicted through it.

In many countries, such as Spain, juvenile criminal responsibility is decided in a separated system with its own courts and legislation. Such system might even be built with a specific foundation, emphasizing education over mere punishment.

Through the study of the legitimacy perceived by the juveniles who are sentenced, our ultimate objective is to gather information about the motivations involved in accepting and complying with the sentence as well as in obeying the law in the future and avoiding re-offending.

To measure such perception we have built and validated a questionnaire that has been answered by a stratified sample of sentenced juveniles in the city of Malaga (Spain), which has a metropolitan area of 1,5 millions of inhabitants.

Results allow an exhaustive analysis of the different aspects of legitimacy we have identified in accordance to the literature: chance for the juveniles to talk and be heard during the different stages of the criminal process, chance to express their feelings, perception of conduct and behaviour of the professionals they meet in the way, perception about the legality of actions

101 We will discuss the implications of these results for a better understanding of the juvenile justice system’s ability to effectively motivate offenders and prevent recidivism.

2.7 SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND VIOLENCE