Book Launch of 'Negotiating Class in Youth Justice: Professional Practice and Interactions

Abstract:

This book examines how class shapes interactions between professionals, parents, and young people in the youth justice system, utilising a mix of contemporary social theory and a wealth of empirical material. It suggests ways to neutralise the effects of class on youth justice interventions in structurally unequal societies and argues for reform based on conceptions of negotiated justice, relational agency, and autonomy in dependence.

The author develops a theoretical framework to explore how class is negotiated within youth justice, taking as its starting point the work of Bourdieu on habitus, Boltanski and Thévenot on the sociology of lay normativity, and Sayer’s work on moral understandings of class. This is combined with a detailed reading of empirical material gathered through focus groups, interviews with practitioners, parents and children, and participant observation of parenting courses. The result is an innovative revisiting of the part that social class plays in determining who is diverted into and away from youth justice and a sustained theoretical and empirical argument for the continued importance of class in criminological research.

This book offers an original contribution to the fields of criminology, youth justice, and crime and the family. It provides an important source of knowledge for academics and practitioners interested in discussions on social class and indirect discrimination.

Jasmina will provide a short introduction and reading from the book. Then we are delighted to be joined by Professor Mark Halsey (Flinders University) and Alice Tawell (University of Oxford), who will offer some reflections about the wider implications of the book. Professor Rachel Condry (University of Oxford) will moderate the event. This will be followed by a Questions & Answers session.

Please note that the Teams link to attend this event will be sent to attendees nearer the Seminar time. Attendees will have the chance to get 20% off the book.

Author's Biography

Jasmina is a Research Associate at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, and the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, where she explores the links between school exclusion and youth offending together with Professor Rachel Condry. Her general research interests lie in juvenile delinquency, crime and the family, discrimination based on personal circumstances and protected characteristics (social class, gender, nationality and ethnicity, disabilities, etc.), theories of punishment, politics of crime control, parole and conditional release, and alternative responses to offending.

Jasmina graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. She passed the State Bar Examination, after which she worked for several years as a judicial advisor at the District Court in Ljubljana (Criminal Division). After completing her M.Phil, D.Phil, and ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, Jasmina joined Keele University as a Lecturer in Criminology.

During her D.Phil, Jasmina was the founder and convenor of the Criminology Working Group at Green Templeton College, Oxford. She was a Research Assistant on several projects: Adolescent to Parent Violence, Excluded Lives, and Crime and Mental Health. In 2015 and 2016, Jasmina organised the first two postgraduate conferences in Criminology at Oxford.