ABSTRACT
Children who come into conflict with the law very often do so beset by challenges, including a disproportionate likelihood of having experienced trauma, violence, or profound adversity. Exacerbating these harms, children’s contact with the various apparatus of the criminal justice system poses additional and undue risks of physical, sexual, and psychological violence, including violence as a sentence, the violence of deprivation, and the violent disruption of a child’s developmental trajectory. In bringing together contributions from diverse regions, this volume illustrates the range of contexts in which various forms of violence against children unfold, and enhances knowledge about the specific situational factors that contribute to, or inhibit, the successful implementation of violence prevention strategies. Contributors draw on case studies from contexts as diverse as Australia, India, Latin America, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The chapters in this book are united by a recognition that specialised child justice systems, in which children’s rights are upheld, are crucial to preventing the violence inherent to conventional criminal justice regimes.
