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Reviewed by:
  • Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in the Non-Western World
  • Jim Hackler
Paul C. Friday and Xin Ren (eds.)Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in the Non-Western World. Monsey, New York, Criminal Justice Press, 2006, 253 pp.

This collection reviews juvenile justice systems with backgrounds arising from common law, civil law, Islamic law, and an Asian philosophy. The countries include India, Nigeria, Macao, the Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Japan, and Thailand.

The study of juvenile justice systems in different parts of the world has taken different forms. In the past some scholars compared juvenile legislation in different countries. Some people assumed that the laws written down in the statutes led to behaviour that would be consistent with those statutes. Today we are aware that what actually happens in practice does not always coincide with the law in the books.

Western scholars trying to learn about juvenile justice in other countries often relied on other western scholars who learned the language and read the literature in a given country. Indigenous scholars who could communicate easily with western scholars on specialized aspects of their own society and make cross-cultural comparisons were uncommon. Things have changed. There are increasing numbers of scholars who share more than one culture, have educational training in multiple cultures, and can communicate across cultures. The collection edited by Paul Friday and Xin Ren reflects the contributions of those with a broader awareness of different societies.

While this collection illustrates this greater breadth and sensitivity, the chapters differ in the nature of their contribution depending on the areas of expertise of the authors. Since this book is written primarily to inform Westerners about other parts of the world, it should be judged on its utility for such an audience.

One weakness is that some authors present crime statistics without acknowledging the difficulty of using them for cross cultural purposes. Murder rates are about the only crime rates that can be used effectively to compare countries. Heroic attempts are being made by criminologists to use other statistics to compare different forms of deviant behaviour, and eventually we may be able to make reasonable comparisons. However, Australia, Canada, and the U. S. have learned that it is difficult to make comparisons from city to city, state to state, and province to province, to say nothing of comparisons with different countries.

When we turn to statistics on delinquency, comparative data become even more problematic. We know that the behaviour of the police and other parts of system influence statistics much more than the actual behaviour of children. The problem is illustrated by Table 6–2 which shows that economic crimes in South Africa (burglary, theft, shoplifting, etc.) make up 2.38% of the crimes committed by children. Aggressive crimes (murder, robbery, kidnapping, assault, etc.) make up 31.56%. Are we to believe that violent crimes are 13 times as frequent as things such as theft? Or does this tell us [End Page 251] something about the reporting system? In addition, rape and indecent assault make up 2.46% of the reported crimes by children, the same as property crimes. These figures simply don’t make sense and need some sort of explanation.

The chapter on China shows the number of public order offenses, but there is no breakdown for juveniles. The larger categories include 18% for battering, and 9.6% for stealing. Again, is one to assume that theft is about half as frequent as violent crime? The violation of residence control and identity card regulations accounts for 15.7%. Juveniles probably have different patterns, but all we know is that in 1991 they accounted for about 20% of the recorded offenses.

A similar problem arises in the chapter on Turkey. Figure 7–1 shows Turkey with a very low crime rate. Denmark, England, and Finland are shown as having a rate 22 times as high. The same chart shows Slovakia with a crime rate that is one-fifth that of Denmark, England and Finland. When I was surrounded in Slovakia and things were stolen from my shoulder bag, I had the distinct impression, shared by the locals I knew, that crime was a...

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