Global forces and local effects in youth justice: the case of Moroccan youngsters in Netherlands

Muncie recently argued for the emergence of ‘something of a global youth juvenile justice’ to explain considerable homogenisation of youth justice in many countries. Global forces upon youth justice are particularly discernable in the Netherlands, either via policy transfer or policy diffusion but also and perhaps mainly through a process of ‘otherisation’ of ethnic minority youngsters of Moroccan descent that are highly overrepresented in police contacts and detention rates. This paper argues that an analysis of youth crime and youth justice needs to consider the dialectic processes of globalisation. It needs to be sensitive to its local effects, as well as to the ways in which ethnic minority youngsters engage in offending behaviour that may well be framed as ebellious transnational identity work.