ESC TWGJJ ROUNDTABLE (1): THE STATE WE’RE IN Chair: Jenneke Christiaens Chair: Jenneke Christiaens

87 attention. At the same time, the literature on migrants who lack legal documentation developed relatively separate. To complicate matters, media attention and political climate have also had their influence on research and debates in these areas and policies constantly change and adapt. With Dario Melossi’s Crime impressive Punishment and Migration these strands are brought together in a encompassing book which covers both the situation in Europe and the US and which adopts a highly needed long-term and comprehensive perspective on these hotly debated and sometimes tabooed issues. In my reaction on Melossi’s unique book I will reflect on the intersections among migration, crime and punishment from a Western European standpoint.

2.2 ESC TWGJJ ROUNDTABLE (1): THE STATE WE’RE IN

0097 - THE STATE WE’RE IN – JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND JUVENILE JUSTICE IN GERMANY Kristina-Maria Kanz (Germany)¹

1 - University of Münster, Institute of Criminology

The German Juvenile Justice System experienced some of its most important changes in the 1970s and 1980s. They were initiated by practitioners and mainly proposed a wide use of diversion, which was codified in 1990. Since then, the system has been comparably stable and seems to be relatively immune to political and societal demands for change. The key features of the German Juvenile Justice System (e.g. diversionary measures, applying juvenile penal law to young adults aged 18-21, three types of sanctions) will be described. Referring to empirical analyses by Heinz (2011) it will also be shown that a punitive turn, as it supposedly has taken place in the US and some European countries, has not reached the Juvenile Justice System in Germany (although at least some politicians asked for harsher punishments in the late 1990s).

Nevertheless, in 2012 some punitive changes have been made which will be presented and their possible consequences will be discussed briefly. A second focus will be on the development of juvenile delinquency in Germany - self-reported as well as officially registered delinquency - and on the question whether a youth crime drop can be witnessed in Germany.

0098 - STATISTICS AND TRENDS ON JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN BELGIUM

Stefaan Pleysier (Belgium)¹; Johan Put (Belgium)¹; Eef Goedseels (Belgium)²; Isabelle Ravier (Belgium)²

1 - Leuven Institute of Criminology, KU Leuven; 2 - National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC)

In this contribution we shed light on statistics and trends in ‘juvenile delinquency’ in Belgium.

We do so, first of all, based on an analysis of the evolution of the flow of cases concerning minors who committed a crime recorded at the level of the youth prosecutor in Belgium.

Bearing in mind the limits of these official data, we will focus on evolutions in the number of cases between 2006 and 2013 considering also different types of offenses: simple robbery, serious theft, vandalism, assault and battery, arson, homicide and attempted homicide, etc.

The analyses will focus on both Francophone and Flemish districts. In a second step we will add self-report data on juvenile delinquency in Belgium to the discussion. Based on availability of self-report data, and again bearing in mind the pitfalls of survey research, we will focus on the Flemish community. Cross-sectional data of the Youth Research Platform (JOP) monitor allows us to compare trends in self-reported juvenile delinquency between three different waves of the monitor, and observe differences between gender, age and different types of offenses.

89 0099 - JUVENILE JUSTICE IN THE NETHERLANDS: RECENT REFORMS, TRENDS AND CHANGES Jolande Uit Beijerse (Netherlands)¹

1 - Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Criminal Justice

The Dutch juvenile justice system, since 1905 closely connected to youth protection with educational sanctions, lost its child-friendly character in 1995. As a result of the punitive turn the role of the juvenile judge was diminished, juvenile sanctions were adjusted to match adult sanctions and the institutions where juveniles stayed in case of incarceration, got the appearance of prisons.

Since 1995 juvenile delinquency became a matter of major governmental concern.

Policymakers invested strongly in researching the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system.

As a result the system changed frequently in the last decade to make room for findings on

‘what works’. Since 2005 the public prosecutor meets with the police and other relevant parties immediately after the arrest of a juvenile to gather the available information and decide how to handle the case. To improve the decision a uniform instrument of future risk-assessment is used since 2011. Since 2008 the judge is stimulated to impose behavioural interventions that are proven to be effective as part of a conditional release from pre-trial detention or a conditional sentence. The same interventions are also used as part of the obligatory aftercare after detention that was introduced in 2011.

The climate in the Netherland towards juvenile delinquency remains punitive. At the same time we can conclude that the focus on ‘what works’ led to a new approach of the juvenile justice system with a renewed close connection to youth protection. Many interventions that are proven to be effective focus on treatment in the family-situation with involvement of the parents. Another result of the strong belief in the effectiveness of youth sanctions is the new policy with respect to young adults since 2014. The use of youth sanctions for this group is broadened and stimulated by raising the upper age from 21 to 23 and reorganising the selection.

0100 - THE CRIME DROP IN SCOTLAND: ARE YOUNG PEOPLE TO THANK?

Susan Mcvie (United Kingdom)¹ 1 - University of Edinburgh

Like many other western industrialised nations, Scotland has experienced a large fall in rates of crime since the start of the 1990s. While a raft of international research has started to unpick the reasons for this sharp decline internationally, it has focused mainly on structural and instrumental drivers rather looking more specifically at the populations who make up the two principal participant groups: victims and offenders. In Scotland, a wide-ranging programme of research has shown that the fall in crime rates coincides with a sharp reduction in rates of conviction amongst young people, particularly young men, aged under 25. The most recent

reductions in crime also coincide with a significant transformation within the system of juvenile justice, which has moved towards a minimal intervention approach predicated on increased diversion and non-statutory engagement. As a result, far fewer young people are coming to the attention of the police, being dealt with by formal authorities and, ultimately, being propelled into the adult criminal justice system. This paper will examine evidence from the Scottish context that the large fall in crime is in large part due to a significant shift in the prevalence, pattern and profile of youth offending; and explore what this means in terms of existing perspectives and theories of youth crime. It will also consider some of the methodological pitfalls of relying on official administrative data to study trends and patterns in crime, and lament the lack of strategic thinking around national and international data collection systems that would allow us to make a far greater contribution to addressing questions around dynamic changes in crime.

2.3 OBSERVING THE OBSERVERS: ETHNOGRAPHIES AND ISSUES RELATED TO