In this book, Ross Fergusson sets about exploring not only the failure of UK youth policy to respond to young people's situations arising from the recent GFC but also how youth ‘unemployment’ and ‘non-participation’ has become increasingly marginalised and criminalised by social policy. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of disciplines and international empirical sources and with a strong theoretical framework he sets about illuminating how governments have continually operated in ways that ignore the needs of young people in these difficult and challenging times. In this process he shows how specific understandings, discourses and policy frameworks constantly re-frame young people as a problem to be managed. One of his core claims draws attention to how the disciplines of social science are ‘. . .ill-prepared to address the sources of the crisis of non-participation, and unable to propose policies capable of stemming endemic, ubiquitous mass non-participation.’ (p. 12) Throughout his analysis he continually shows the ways that academic approaches have been limited and ineffective in making sense of these developments. He does this by discussing how the relationship between broader macro changes and welfare policies that have emerged to tackle the problems of unemployment, criminalise and marginalise the young have been overlooked in much of the analysis by social scientists. From this position his approach then aims to re-assert and show how social science can make a difference to our understandings of these processes.

The book is split into four parts. Part one, provides an introduction to the book's core aims and objectives setting out its rationale and approach. It also highlights, through evidence from the UK and internationally, the extent of the crisis of non-participation especially as it has grown throughout the recent GFC. It is followed by a critical discussion of the failings of academic approaches to grasp why and how mass unemployment and non-participation has become associated with crime. His main complaint is that there remains a silo mentality across social science disciplines that create narrow understandings and readings of this relationship. Part two contains five chapters that explore factors such as discourses and histories of non-participation, the relationship between wages and welfare and non-participation, the crime - unemployment nexus, and the recession and its relationship with non-participation. Throughout this analysis he draws our attention to the ways that non-participation is being reconceptualised (usually from structural causes to individual fault and poor choices) and that how the evidence that is called upon continually struggles to demonstrate ‘causal’ relationships; thus ambiguities remain unresolved. As a result, Fergusson wants to propose that crude distinctions and binaries (i.e. between exogenous and endogenous or/ and nomothetic and idiographic) need refining to help establish the key criterion for assessing the value of theories that can help us understand what is going on. This he starts to address in Part three by building a theoretical framework that draws on the ideas and approaches of Jürgen Habermas and Imogen Tyler especially in relation to governmentality. His main argument is that they both bring different paradigms to the analysis but complement each other and address some of the weaknesses inherent in the two different approaches. He then draws on this framework to examine the relationship between non-participation and crime showing how a method that recognises the process of governmentality is able to provide insights to help us see how concepts such as ‘governing through unemployment’ or ‘governing through crime’ brings to our attention the ways ‘. .the state finds more sophisticated forms of resolving structural problems by requiring specified forms of participation and by using the powers of civil and criminal law to bear down on those who refuse them’ (p. 228). In the final part of the book, Fergusson draws on Habermas's notion of juridification showing how the law (in all its guises) has become more sophisticated and effective in criminalising a broad range of behaviours of the young. In the final section he then starts to show how this works in practice using the growth of different modes of governance within criminal justice (i.e. antisocial behaviour orders and curfews) and welfare benefits (i.e. unemployment allowances and conditionality) highlighting how they are becoming interwoven and bridged creating and expanding new ways of criminalising the young.

Ross Fergusson has delivered a book that aims to take us beyond generalised claims about the increased role of the state in the process of controlling and governing the behaviour of the young. It is an extensive and detailed analysis of the policy nexus within a changing economic and social context that has been created by the GFC. It draws our attention to sometimes insidious ways that criminalisation can and is embed in policies that claim to be ‘supportive’ or ‘empowering’. I was impressed with the way that he problematises and unpacks the concept of ‘non-participation’ challenging traditional ways of thinking about this question and also showing how it has become a more central feature of youth policy and professional practice. Bringing these issues to the fore and developing a more sophisticated theoretical understanding of the processes and practices is at the heart of his analysis but does he achieve this? I have a lot of sympathy with the arguments of governmentality and especially the work of Tyler yet at times the complexity and detail (and some of the language) makes it difficult to follow the argument. While the book builds in reviews and reflections to help the reader grasp the argument as it unfolds it does at times become too complex and leaves you uncertain about the legitimacy of the claims. I would be cautious about using this book with my undergraduate students as many would find it beyond them. I also think that, in the complexity, it loses a core focus on who is impacted most by these developments (i.e. the poor, the working class). It is clear that if you are middle class and have the protection of wealth and capital (s) you are unlikely to be criminalised for your non-participation. While he makes reference to this at different points in the discussion I do think it should be made more explicit in the analysis. That said, Ross Fergusson does provide new insights by his breadth of coverage and by combining the work of Habermas and Tyler. He also opens up new theoretical ways of looking at governmentality that shed light on the process and practice in policy of criminalisation. While his argument is complex it does move our thinking forward and introduces us to new ways of conceptualising, theorising and analysing, within the social sciences, the criminalisation and marginalisation of youth.