​Mass youth unemployment is now endemic and almost ubiquitous in the global north and south alike. This book offers an original and challenging interpretation of the ways in which young people’s unemployment and general non-participation is becoming marginalised and criminalised. It re-examines the causes and consequences of non-participation from an unusually wide range of disciplines, using an innovative theorisation of the fast-changing relationships between extended studentship, welfare provision, labour market restructuring and crime. This approach offers an important contribution for understanding what it means for young people to be socially re-positioned and economically excluded in increasingly unequal societies, in and beyond the UK.Widespread youth unemployment is rapidly becoming a major problem around the world. Young people themselves are being blamed and their non-participation in the workforce criminalised. Ross Fergusson mounts a powerful critique of current approaches to youth unemployment, re-examining its causes and consequences from a wide range of perspectives. This is essential for anyone working with or trying to address the problems of youth today.