While opinions on what should be done with youth offenders vary from person to person, perceived levels of safety and fear of crime have been linked to more punitive attitudes towards crime and punishment. Qualitative methods were employed to explore the attitudes and opinions of members of the New Zealand public with varying levels of community safety in respect to the treatment of youth offenders. Results indicate those who identified as lowest in levels of safety were more punitive in their opinions, though they also expressed a firm desire for progressive treatment options such as rehabilitation and taking preventative action. Those who felt the safest in their community were less likely to be punitive in their opinions towards youth offenders.

In the past decade Cape Verde has seen an unexpected outburst of gang-related urban violence. The state has reacted mainly by means of a repressive securitization policy, which has not been able to offer more than temporary solutions. In public discourses, “broken” families, youth drug consumption, and a supposed lack of education and sufficiently severe punishment are often referred to as the main causes for the rise in crime. The article discusses such discourses, contrasting them with the experiences and narratives of inmates from the country’s two central prisons. It suggests that extrajudicial punishment of suspects and offenders by police officers, as reported by many juvenile convicts, is part of the dynamics of violence manifest in different spheres of Cape Verdean society and may be a possible factor influencing the decision of young citizens to “opt” for, or stick to, careers of marginality and delinquency.