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Welfare State Regimes & Youth Incarceration : A Comparison of Germany, Sweden, and the United States
(2015)
Despite international consensus among researchers that incarcerating youth is an ineffective and inefficient response to crime, this practice persists—to widely varying degrees—in every country. What are the differences in youth incarceration in disparate welfare state regimes? To answer this question, this paper develops a youth incarceration typology by comparing three cases: that of Sweden, Germany, and the United States. The first multi-¬‐dimensional typology specific to youth incarceration, this tool encompasses four key domains central to the type of system operated in a nation. These include the purpose and extent of incarceration use, compliance with international human rights, and privatization receptiveness. A fifth domain, disproportionate minority incarceration, was considered but results indicate the need for further research on this issue. Three youth incarceration types, aligned with welfare state regimes, are developed from a mixed methods research design comparing the countries of interest. With juvenile justice systems situated within justice departments and a central aim of punishment, liberal regimes, such as the United States, demonstrate low compliance with human rights, and the highest rates of prison privatization. Conservative regimes, based on data from Germany, exhibit a central goal of rehabilitation, low privatization receptiveness, and ratification of human rights resolutions. Social democratic regimes, such as Sweden, have a youth rights centered system, with no privatization and full adoption of human rights resolutions. When accounting for diversity in each country’s population, Sweden was found to have the highest levels of disproportionate minority incarceration and the United States the lowest, with Germany between the two. Regarding this domain, further research is required to determine if this finding is characteristic of social democratic and liberal nations. After comparing the countries of interest, the relationship between welfare state regime types and juvenile justice systems is examined. This paper concludes with recommendations for the research, policy, and practitioner communities to advance analysis and reforms to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of juvenile justice systems internationally.