The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxviii

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2. Introduction

   • Alexandra Cox, Laura S. Abrams

   Pages 1-15

3. Violated: Children’s Rights are Human Rights

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. Self-Isolation May Feel Like Jail: It’s Nothing Compared to Youth Prison

      • Hernán Carvente-Martinez

      Pages 19-21

   3. Children and Young People in Custody in England and Wales: Rights and Wrongs

      • Laura Janes

      Pages 23-50

   4. Everyday Violence in El Redentor Specialized Care Center in Bogotá, Colombia

      • Laura Liévano-Karim, Amy E. Ritterbusch

      Pages 51-75

   5. Doing Time: Young People and the Rhetoric of Juvenile Justice in Ghana

      • Kofi E. Boakye, Thomas D. Akoensi

      Pages 77-103

4. Socio-Legal Contexts of Youth Imprisonment

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 105-105

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   2. The Rebirth of Delinquent ‘Adult-Children’: Criminal Capacity, Socio-economic Systems, and the Malleability of Penality of Child Delinquency in India

      • Shailesh Kumar

      Pages 107-139

   3. Juvenile Deprivation of Liberty in Brazil: Discretion, Expansion and Deterioration

      • Rafael Barreto Souza

      Pages 141-163

   4. “I Wanna Be Somebody by the Time I Turn 25”: Narratives of Pathways into Crime and Reentry Expectations Among Young Men in Germany and the United States

      • Michaela Soyer, Janina L. Selzer

      Pages 165-182

5. Regulating Emotions and Relationships Behind Bars

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 183-183

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   2. State Property

      • Jim St. Germain

      Pages 185-204

   3. Boredom: A Key Experience of Youth Imprisonment

      • Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson

      Pages 205-223

   4. Friendship in the Juvenile Correctional Institution

      • Anne M. Nurse

      Pages 225-241

   5. Juvenile Facility Staff: Research, Policy, and Practice

      • Alexandra Cox

      Pages 243-264

6. Gendering Justice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 265-265

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   2. Straight and Narrow: Girls, Sexualities, and the Youth Justice System

      • Lisa Pasko

      Pages 267-284

   3. “This Place Saved My Life”: The Limits of Christian Redemption Narratives at a Juvenile Detention Facility for Girls

      • Mary E. Thomas

      Pages 285-304

   4. Horizontal Surveillance and Therapeutic Governance of Institutionalized Girls

      • Carla P. Davis

      Pages 305-331

This handbook brings together the knowledge on juvenile imprisonment to develop a global, synthesized view of the impact of imprisonment on children and young people. There are a growing number of scholars around the world who have conducted in-depth, qualitative research inside of youth prisons, and about young people incarcerated in adult prisons, and yet this research has never been synthesized or compiled. This book is organized around several core themes including: conditions of confinement, relationships in confinement, gender/sexuality and identity, perspectives on juvenile facility staff, reentry from youth prisons, young people’s experiences in adult prisons, and new models and perspectives on juvenile imprisonment. This handbook seeks to educate students, scholars, and policymakers about the role of incarceration in young people’s lives, from an empirically-informed, critical, and global perspective.

• youth justice
• juvenile justice
• prisons
• youth studies
• sociology of imprisonment
• youth imprisonment
• social welfare
• sociology of corrections
• gender and identity
• confinement
• prison staff
• adult prisons

• Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

  Alexandra Cox

• Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

  Laura S. Abrams

Alexandra Cox is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. She previously served as Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz in their Department of Sociology.


Laura S. Abrams is Chair and Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, USA. Her scholarship focuses on improving the well-being of youth and young adults with histories of incarceration.

Policies and ethics