ABSTRACT

The theoretical, political and policy starting point for abolitionists is the recognition that penal institutions for juveniles are themselves social problems that not only have a minimal impact on crime but also inflict serious harm and damage on individual young prisoners, their families and communities. The issue of child deaths in custody is an example of this point. In addition, these institutions fail to offer psychological comfort to the victims of crime or their relatives, and fail to protect the wider public from further victimization when the young prisoner is eventually released. Abolitionists would argue that the youth justice system, and the penal institutions which underpin that system, are indefensible and socially harmful. They would maintain that liberal reforms have done little to challenge the brutal and punitive nature of the current system of juvenile confinement and that these reforms have overwhelmingly been incorporated into the system, thereby legitimating its further expansion.