IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i4p1735-d494423.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenging the Reductionism of “Evidence-Based” Youth Justice

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Case

    (Social and Policy Studies, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK)

Abstract

The generation of empirical evidence to explain offending by children and young people has been a central driver of criminological and sociological research for more than two centuries. Across the international field of youth justice, empirical research evidence has become an integral means of complementing and extending the knowledge and understanding of offending offered by the official enquiries and data collection of professional stakeholders and an essential tool for informing ‘evidence-based’ policy, practice and ‘effective intervention’. However, it will be argued that the hegemonic empirical evidence-base created by youth justice research over the past two decades has been generated through methodological reductionism - the oversimplification of complexity, the restriction of conceptual lens and the relative exclusion of competing explanatory paradigms and empirical methodologies, which in turn, has reduced the scope and validity of the policy and practice recommendations derived from it.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Case, 2021. "Challenging the Reductionism of “Evidence-Based” Youth Justice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:1735-:d:494423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1735/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1735/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Merry-Jo D. Levers, 2013. "Philosophical Paradigms, Grounded Theory, and Perspectives on Emergence," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(4), pages 21582440135, December.
    2. Case, Stephen & Hazel, Neal, 2020. "Child first, offender second – A progressive model for education in custody," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohajan, Devajit & Mohajan, Haradhan, 2023. "Families of Grounded Theory: A Theoretical Structure for Novel Researchers," MPRA Paper 116752, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Jan 2023.
    2. Emily Ryan & Matthew Pepper & Albert Munoz, 2021. "Causal Loop Diagram Aggregation Towards Model Completeness," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 37-51, February.
    3. Martin Reynolds & Emily Gates & Richard Hummelbrunner & Mita Marra & Bob Williams, 2016. "Towards Systemic Evaluation," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 662-673, September.
    4. C. M. Bhuvaneswari & K. Maruthamuthu, 2024. "Analysing the Art of Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of Digital Banking Services: A SEM Approach," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 14(4), pages 202-209, July.
    5. Kalyani Subbiah & Arima Mishra & Jaya A. R. Dantas, 2023. "Gynaecological Cancers in India: The Less Heard Perspectives of Healthcare Providers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    6. Fregidou-Malama, Maria & Hyder, Akmal S., 2021. "Multilevel trust in international marketing of healthcare services: A five-country comparative study," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6).
    7. ahmed Shafi, Adeela & Little, Ross & Case, Stephen, 2021. "Children’s education in secure custodial settings: Towards a global understanding of effective policy and practice," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Luke William John Watkins & Alinka Gearon, 2024. "Mapping Driving Factors of UK Serious Youth Violence across Policy and the Community: A Multi-Level Discoursal Analysis," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, July.
    9. Mattia Casula & Nandhini Rangarajan & Patricia Shields, 2021. "The potential of working hypotheses for deductive exploratory research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(5), pages 1703-1725, October.
    10. Mojtaba Khaghani Milani & Mahmoud Reza Hashemi, 2020. "Extended grounded theory: a methodology to combine multiple disciplines," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 89-120, March.
    11. Alison Clements & Angela Nicholas & Karen E Martin & Susan Young, 2022. "Towards an Evidence-Based Model of Workplace Postvention," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:1735-:d:494423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.