Young Adult Offenders：Lost in Transition?

This is a unique and timely volume concerning young adult offenders, which is a much neglected area. The volume contains ten authoritative chapters written by prime scholars in the field. The chapters, relevant for practitioners, scholars and decision makers, are a major advance in key areas such as delinquency careers, gender differences, co-occurring problem behaviours and optimal justice processing of young adult offenders.

Rolf Loeber, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, and Professor of Juvenile Delinquency and Social Development at the Free University at Amsterdam, The Netherlands

A thoughtful contribution which discusses some of the potential ways forward for approaching young people who have become involved in crime. An important book for academics and practitioners alike.

Stephen Farrall, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

This latest volume in the Cambridge Criminal Justice Series focuses upon young adults and their treatment in the criminal justice system. The subject is very topical because there is increasing evidence that a rigid distinction between `youth' and `adulthood' is not appropriate in modern societies. For example, important developmental tasks such as finishing one's education, finding regular work and the foundation of one's own family are now completed later than in former times; neuropsychological brain functions are still developing beyond age 18; and desistance from criminal offending occurs most rapidly in early adulthood.

Despite such evidence, the United Kingdom and other countries have largely neglected policies for young adult offenders in comparison with young people under 18. Although there seems to be no general transnational solution for this problem, there is a clear need for differentiation. This book brings together leading authorities in the field to analyse theoretical, empirical and policy issues relating to this neglected group of people, exploring different approaches to both crime prevention and offender treatment. It will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and policy makers in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, prisons, probation, forensic psychology and psychiatry, sociology, education and social work

Friedrich Losel is Director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and Professor of Psychology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Sir Anthony Bottoms is Emeritus Wolfson Professor of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Professor of Criminology at the University of Sheffield
David P. Farrington is Professor of Psychological Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh