Summary
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Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, yet it has its own education system, legal system, and very distinct system of juvenile justice. This innovative system is the Children’s Hearing System, which came into operation in 1971 following the recommendations of the Kilbrandon Committee (a review between 1961 and 1964 of the operation of the Scottish juvenile justice system). The philosophy behind the Children’s Hearing System was based on this premise: the focus of the juvenile justice system should be on the “the needs and not the deeds of the child.� It was deemed that offending was in many cases a reflection of problems normally related to the family environment; hence, juvenile justice should be oriented toward intervention where the problem begins, namely, the home. To detail all of this, Buist and Asquith sketch the demographic profile of Scotland, summarize social policy issues related to children and youth, survey trends in offending behavior by juveniles, and examine the juvenile justice system in Scotland.
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