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Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the views of young offenders in Japan and Scotland about why they start and stop offending and their needs in the transition to adulthood. It places particular emphasis on their need for recognition and belonging, which can both encourage and discourage crime.

Paper long abstract:

Japan is an anomaly in international criminology circles, given its remarkably low and stable crime rate compared with countries in the West, and yet Japan is highly populated, advanced and rapidly changing, factors which are usually associated with problematic crime rates.

This presentation draws on qualitative research conducted with young offenders in Japan and Scotland, two contrasting countries in terms of youth crime. Both sets of interviews focused on young people's experiences of starting offending (onset) and stopping offending (desistance) during the transition to adulthood - namely, from the teenage years until their late twenties/early thirties. Unlike research studies of offending in the West, offenders in Japan are not commonly asked for their views on what causes, exacerbates and reduces offending behaviour. Ministry of Justice White Papers on youth offending, for example, tend only to include limited surveys on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at young people's overt offending behaviour. The current research went much further into the lifestyles, attitudes and experiences of 45 young people aged 16-33 in Japan and 40 young people aged 18-30 in Scotland, all of whom had spent much of their childhood and youth involved in offending and the criminal and youth justice systems.

The presentation thus offers a deeper insight into the complex narratives of young offenders in Japan and Scotland about why they start and stop offending. It focuses primarily on their views and experiences of interactions with others, both within their communities and within the Criminal Justice system. The presentation draws on recent theoretical developments on the concept of recognition within philosophical and political theory to examine the needs of these young people for love, respect and esteem within the transition to adulthood: a need to belong and to be recognised which takes them both into and out of an offending lifestyle.