Punishing children: A survey of criminal responsibility and approaches across Europe

This survey of youth justice systems in Europe emphasises the extent to which England and Wales is divorced from its European neighbours in the way it treats children when they do something wrong.

The majority of European countries see a child committing crime as a welfare matter, an occasion to energise the various child welfare agencies to examine what is causing the child’s offending behaviour and to address those causes – be it educational difficulties, mental health needs or histories of abuse and neglect. By comparison, the English and Welsh youth justice system is engineered to respond primarily through punishment.