Responses to serious offending by children in northwestern Europe

This chapter explores the sentencing laws and practices for children who commit serious violent or sexual offences across six Northwestern European jurisdictions, i.e., Belgium (Flanders), Germany, England & Wales, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. First, we outline the foundations of the youth justice systems and the applicable sentencing laws, followed by an analysis of sentencing practices based on case-law. The comparative analysis reveals that the common law jurisdictions apply a more punitive approach than the civil law jurisdictions. Exclusion from the youth justice framework by imposing adult sentences on children is widespread. Finally, we conclude that there is a need for further in-depth, multi-method comparative research into sentencing practices to advance cross-national understanding of responses to serious offending by children in the region.