Ignorance and suspicion: Young people and criminal justice in Scotland and Germany

Most evidence on public perception and experience of criminal justice is based on research from the United States and this work is rarely comparative. This paper presents results of a comparative analysis of young people's contacts with and perceptions of criminal justice in Scotland and West Germany. Comparisons are made of criminal justice approaches to young people, experiences and attitudes toward the police, perceptions of criminal justice sanctions, and the impact of contact with the police. These jindings expand the empirical base in this field of study by adding to existing knowledge of the European experience. Contacts between young people and the criminal justice system have been a persistent focus of investigation at least since the pioneering work of North American researchers in the early 1960s (Piliavin and Briar 1964). It is not surprising that these investigations usually concentrate on the relationships between the police and the young. As official statistics from numerous countries indicate, the young have a disproportionately high level of contact with the police. Such a research concentration represents social scientists ' concern to investigate the most public and continuous representations of the criminal justice system. Despite advances in knowledge in this area, the bulk of th